MCLEAN,  J. 

Treatise  on  the  origin  of 
destructive  insect  plagues. 


GEORGE  C.   HUSMANN 


COLLEGE  OF  AGRICULTURE 
DAVIS,  CALIFORNIA 


6 


ol  tYve  tree  WERE  for  the  hea.lin§. 
REVELATION  22.  2. 


* 


Gloria  in  excelsis    Deo   et  in  terra  pax   hominibus   bonce    voluntatis. 

TME^TISE 

Dn  the  Origin  of  Destructive   Insect   Flagnss    and 

ImprovEments  in  the  Art  of   their   Eradication 

and  FrEvention.      From   a  MBtErEological 

and  Hygisnic  Basis,      Revissd  and  TE- 

writtEn  in  San  Francisco,  California; 

U,    S,    a,,    in  April;    1LBB3, 

under  the   auspices   of 

rrt  ~cir  "Tj"1    "THr^iTCr       ~\7t7~       "P^T"       HPT"       ""PT"  A  TT*  T^ 
l      r~i     n j     JljLV^J.N  .      VV   _     _TTj_-      _dl_.     -F3 £A_  r<j    i 

Attorney-General  of  the  State  of  California,  and  author  of  the  famous  "  Contagious  Fruit  Trees  Ac1,"  etc 

BY 


MEDICAL  ORCHARDIST 
(For  twenty  years  Senior  Inspector  of  Forests  and  Agricultural  Settlement  in  Victoria,  Australia.) 

Respectfully  Dedicated  to  the  Founder  of  "Arbor  Day" 

THE  HON.  /.    STERLING  MORTON, 

United    States  Minister  of  Agriculture. 


WORDS    OF     WISDOM: 

"  The  strong  man  who,  in  the  confidence  of  sturdy  health,  courts  the  sternest  activities  of  life 
and  rejoices  in  the  hardihood  of  constant  labor,  may  still  have  lurking  near  his  vitals  unheeded  disease 
that  dooms  him  to  sudden  collapse."— PRESIDENT  CLEVELAND,  (March  4th,  1893) 


Letters  Patent  | 
applied  for     \ 


AMERICAN  ADDRESS, 


Price  25  cents 


CARE 


NCI»CO,  CAL. 


Printed  for  the  Publisher  by  McCormick  J&4p.4ijBkHg«fl^nY  Street,  San  Francisco,  Cal.,  June,  1893. 

COLLEGE  OF  AGRICULTURE 


PREFACE. 

As  "  there  is  no  new  thing  under  the  sun,"  and  being  conscioi 
of  my  inability  to  do  otherwise  than  feebly  verify  that  fact,  I  ha~\ 
ventured  to  adopt  the  following  philosophic  lines  penned  by  L,ESS  i  NG  '< 
a  preface  to  this  somewhat  necessarily  fragmentary  treatise  :  "  Hvei 
man  has  his  own  style,  as  he  has  his  own  nose,  and  it  is  neither  poli 
nor  Christian  to  rally  an  honest  man  about  his  nose  however  singul; 
it  may  be.  How  can  I  help  it  that  my  style  is  not  different  ?  Th; 
there  is  no  affectation  in  it  I  am  certain." 


San  Francisco,  June,   1893. 


THE 

ORIGIN  OF  DESTRUCTIVE  INSECT  PLAGUES 

AND 

GENERAL  ATMOSPHERIC   TROUBLES. 

HOW   DISCOVERED. 

REMEDY. 

ETC. 


THE    EVOLUTION     OF     OBSCURE     TRUTHS. 

The  African  savage  when  he  takes  off  his  fur  kaross  is  familiar  with 
the  electric  sparks  which  corn6  from  it;  but  he  views  them  with  the  eye 
of  an  ox,  and  thinks  nothing  more  about  them.  The  American  Indian, 
in  the  dry  climate  of  the  United  States,  must  constantly  have  seen  these 
sparks,  but  never  dreamed  of  making  Franklin's  experiment  by  bringing 
them  down  from  a  thunder-storm  and  showing  that  they  were  identical 
with  lightning.  The  science  of  electricity  and  all  scientific  conceptions 
arise  only  when  culture  develops  the  human  mind  and  compels  it  to  give 
a  rational  account  of  the  world  in  which  man  "  lives  and  moves  and  has 
his  being."  One  hundred  and  twenty  years  before  the  Christian  era, 
Hero,  a  renowned  mechanician  of  Alexandria,  Egypt,  discovered  the 
power  of  steam  when  confined  in  a  closed  vessel,  and  he  invented  the 
"  selopile,"  a  machine  whose  arms  were  propelled  by  the  reaction  of 
issuing  jets  of  steam.  It  was  only  an  ingenious  toy,  but  it  contained 
<•  the  promise  and  potency"  of  the  remarkable  motor  which  twenty  cen- 
turies later  re-invented  by  Papin  and  Savery,  finally  received  its  finishing 
touches  from  the  fertile  brain  and  cunning  hand  of  my  illustrious  coun- 
tryman and  townsman,  James  Watt,  who  left  the  steam  engine  the  prac- 
tically perfected  machine  of  to-day,  for  whenever  improvements  have 
been  made  they  have  been  on  lines  laid  down  by  Watt.  In  like  manner 
the  illimitable  store  house  of  nature — the  fountain  of  all  benificent  ideas — 
has  been  from  time  to  time  explored  by  the  agency  of  simple  "  ingenious 
toys,"  etc.  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  for  example,  when  playing  as  a  little  boy  on 
the  bank  of  a  favorite  stream  was  led  to  perceive  the  hitherto  unnoticed, 
though  immutable,  law  of  attraction  and  repulsion  by  the  agency  of  sun- 
dry  little  globules  of  water  gambolling  in  detached  particles  as  they  were 
propelled  from  the  adjacent  bubbling  brook;  how  that  globules  of  equal 
proportions  were  repellant  to  each  other,  whilst  the  smaller  or  more  nega- 
tive were  attracted  to  and  absorbed  by  the  larger  or  more  positive.  It 
should  be  needless  in  these  enlightened  times  by  any  special  reasonings 
to  affirm  that  this  now  universally  recognized  law  intimately  applies  to 
the  whole  of  organic  nature.  Man,  for  instance,  who  is  but  a  migratory 
tree  or  shrub  becomes,  from  various  preventable  causes,  mentally  and 
physically  enfeebled,  and  is  in  consequence,  as  are  all  manner  of  plants 
susceptible  to  attacks  from 


"THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS." 
MINUTE    FUNGACIOUS     ORGANISMS. 


Professor  Carl  von  Nacgeli,  in  his  work  on  ••  The 
Organisms  in  relation  to  Infectious  Diseases  ^i 
declares  that  •«  the  decompositions  effected  by  the  mould  fung  ^m 
decay    or    consumption.     Under    their    influence      for   instance 
putrify,  or  wood  is  converted  into  mould  by  a  kind  of  slow  combustion  of 
uruanic  substances.    The  decompositions  to  which  the  sprouting  fi 
saccharomyces  gives   rise,   are  these   of  fermentation      By   their  age 
6u«ar  is  converted  into  alcohol  and  carbonic  acid.     The  infectious  princi- 
ples of  septic  diseases  (that  which  promotes  the  putrifaction   of  orgam 
bodies)  manifest  themselves  through  putridity,  originated   again   by   pe 
culiar  luugi,  which  may  be  the  bearers  of  a  separate  putrid  matter  also. 
The  atmosphere  is  the  medium  through  the  agency  of  which  infectious- 
germs  are  most  generally  disseminated  after  they  have  been  reduced  to  a 
state  of  minute  dust  by  desecation."    Other  eminent  scientists   and   nu- 
merous observing  laymen  are  hourly  verifying   the   above   affirmation   as. 
they  become  more  familiar  with 

THE    CHEMISTRY    OF    CREATION. 

Prof  essor  Ellis,  F.L.S.,  in  his  standard  work  on  the  "Chemistry  of 
Creation,"  (folio  162)  states  :  "  Insects,  fish,  lichens,  infusorial  animal- 
cules, volcanic  ashes,  sand,  earth,  and  many  other  substances  are  occa- 
sionally borne  into  the  air  by  the  action  of  rapidly  revolving  currents, 
and  are  dropped  often  at  a  great  distance  from  the  places  whence  they 
were  snatched."  And  concerning  our  long  pitiable  ignorance  regarding  the 
composition  and  functions  of  the  air  we  breathe,  Professor  Ellis  declares- 
(folio  130)  "  until  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  opinion  was 
very  prevalent  that  the  atmosphere  formed  one  of  the  four  elementary 
bodies;  that  it  was  in  fact  a  simple,  undecomposable  gas.  It  was  re- 
served for  the  talented  Dr.  Priestly  to  dispel  this  error.  He  discovered 
the  existence  of  a  new  gas  which  formed  one  of  the  constituents  of  air. 
In  this  gas  it  was  found  that  combustion  took  place  with  extraordinary 
intensity;  even  iron  wire  heated  red-hot  and  plunged  into  it  caught  fire 
and  burnt  away.  Other  combustibles  gave  out  showers  of  the  most  bril- 
liant sparks  and  produced  the  most  intense  heat  when  placed  in  the  jar 
containing  it.  A  lighted  taper  having  been  blown  out  immediately  re- 
kindled when  put  into  it  and  blazed  with  much  greater  brilliancy  than  in 
the  air.  Another  gas  was  also  found  to  form  a  component  of  the  air  — 
namely,  nitrogen.  The  former  being  oxygen.  The  writer  proceeds  to 
state  that  "  animals  were  exhilarated  when  plunged  into  oxygen,  and 
they  were  suffocated  in  nitrogen.  "  A  never  failing  spring  of  oxygen 
exists,"  continues  Prof.  Ellis,  '*  and  its  copious  streams,  by  a  nice  adjust- 
ment, replace  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the  loss.  In  the  green  grass,  in 
the  leaves  of  unpretending  herbs  and  in  those  of  the  clustering  woods, 
we  shall  find  are  hid  those  springs  of  this  precious  ingredient,  without 
which  desolation  and  death  might  at  no  distant  time  gradually  overwhelm  the 
globe."  Prof.  Ellis  further  states  (folio  238)  that  the  carbonic  acid  pois- 
ons which  destroy  animal  life  and  provide  sustenance  for  disease  germs, 
are  furnished  to  the  air  by  various  processes  of  combustion,  respiration, 
putrifaction,  and  from  volcanic  craters,  etc.,  which  constitute  the  true 
source  of  vegetable  nutrition.  The  composition—  when  in  a  normal  con- 
ilition—  being,  Carbon  .  .  27:27.  Oxygen  .  .  72.73:  "  Each 


"  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS."     5 

Hundred  parts  of  carbonic  acid  contains  by  weight  27 J  parts  of  carbon; 
if,  therefore,  we  could  remove  the  oxygeu  (which  we  have  not  a  little 
done  and  still  continue  to  do  by  our  suicidal  destruction  of  "  clustering 
woods"  all  over  the  earth)  "  carbon  is  left."  Yes,  carbon,  like  the  poor, 
""  ye  have  always  with  you." 

FOREST  INFLUENCE    IN    GAI/LJLEE. 

"  There  was  a  time,"  declared  an  able  writer  in  the  New  York  Herald 
of  July  12th,  1891,  "  when  every  acre  of  G-allilee  not  under  pasturage 
was  verdant  with  the  foliage  of  trees.  "When  the  trees  re-appear,  as  they 
might  in  a  few  years,  Gallilee  alone  would  be  capable  of  maintaining  an 
immense  population  in  rich  abundance."  The  above  paragraph  from  an 
article  on  the  probable  return  of  the  still  scattered  Jews  to  Palestine 
speaks  volumes.  Palestine,  like  all  other  parts  of  this  earth,  has  been 
transformed  into  a  barren  destructive-insect  and  storm-breeding  Sahara 
since  the  forest  lungs  were  destroyed,  and— deny  it  who  may — the  only 
possible  remedy  to  restore  the  earth's  atmospheric  equilibrium  there  and 
-elsewhere  is  to  forthwith  replant  and  properly  protect  our  forests.  On 
this  momentous  question  I  must  now  solicit  the  readers  special  attention. 

THE  ORDER    OF     CREATION. 

The  order  of  creation  or  evolution  upon  the  globe  shows  clearly  how  very 
•closely  related  every  atom  in  and  upon  it  is  to  each  other.  In  each  phase 
of  being  the  manifestation  of  that  period  that  then  was  was  apparently 
independent  of  that  which  was  to  follow,  but  when  that  which  was  to 
follow  made  its  appearance  it  found  itself  dependent  upon  everything 
which  had  preceded  it  or  by  which  it  was  surrounded.  Our  dependence 
upon  creatures  in  a  lower  stage  of  development  admonished  us  to  protect 
and  nourish  them  in  return — to  "replenish  the  earth  and  subdue  it." 
Surely,  if  words  have  any  meaning  at  all,  we  cannot  be  blind  to  the  ob- 
vious signification  of  the  replenishing  condition.  What  is  replenish  but 
to  fill  up  again?  If,  according  to  the  commonly  received  opinion  among 
the  churches,  Adam  and  Eve  were  the  first  human  beings  placed  upon 
the  earth,  it  would  be  the  height  of  absurdity  to  talk  of  them  replenish- 
ing the  globe  by  means  of  their  offspring.  You  cannot  fill  again  that 
which  has  never  been  full,  but  has  always  been  empty  before.  If  you  set 
a  savory  dish  and  a  clean  plate  before  a  guest  you  do  not  say  to  him,  be- 
fore he  has  touched  the  former,  "  Replenish  your  plate,"  but  you  may  do 
so  after  he  has  filled  it  and  eaten  its  contents.  In  that  case  we  should 
be  greatly  surprised  and  vexed  if,  after  satisfying  his  hunger,  he  should 
dash  the  plate  to  atoms  on  the  floor  and  fling  away  the  rest  of  the  food 
out  of  the  dish.  Nevertheless,  this  is  what  we  have  all  been  doing  for 
many  centuries  past,  with  respect  to  the  earth,  which  was  confided  to  our 
care  to  keep  it  and  to  dress  it  for  each  others  unstinted  happiness.  In- 
stead of  replenishing  it,  instead  of  cultivating  it  in  such  a  manner  as  that 
its  fertility  and  productiveness  should  not  only  undergo  no  dimunition  at 
our  hands,  but  should  go  on  increasing  from  age  to  age,  we  have  defaced, 
deformed  and  devasted  it.  We  have  not  been  faithful  stewards  and  hon- 
est husbandmen,  but  wasters  and  spoilers.  We  have  desolated  what  we 
should  have  rendered  still  more  fruitful  and  beautiful.  In  the  impressive 
words  of  the  Roman  historian,  "  We  have  made  a  solitude  and  have 
called  it  peace."  We  have  created  a  desert  and  charged  the  conse- 
quences of  our  own  malignity  upon  God.  Instead  of  causing  the  wilder- 


6     "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS. 

ness  to  blossom  as  the  rose  we  have  saturated  the  vineyards  and  orchard  a 
and  harvest  fields  of  some  of  the  fairest  portions  of  the   globe  with  the 
red  reign  of  ferocious  warfare.     We  have  felled  the  venerable  forests,  in 
whose  green  aisles  myriads   of  winged  choristers   made  blithest  rnusi 
from  morn  till  noon,  from  noon  till   dewy   eve;  we   have   disrobed   the 
mountains  of  their  glorious  atmospheric   enriching  foliage,   and  have 
transformed  perennial  springs  into  intsrmitteut  and  terribly  destructive 
torrents;  we  have  exterminated  whole  species  of  quadrupeds  of  birds  and 
fishes;  we  have  introduced  the  utmost  discord,  derangement  and  disorder 
into  the  otherwise  faultless  harmony  of  nature;  and  we  have  torn  from 
the  bowels  of  the  earth  the  precious  metals  which  minister  to  our  cupid- 
ity, and  the  minerals  with  which  we  decorate  our  persons  in  the  spirit  of 
the  savage  still  surviving  in  us,  leaving  yawning  carbon  supplying  shafts 
and  caverns  as  pitfalls  for  all  other  comers.     We  have  "  smitten  the  earth 
with  a  curse/'  aud  that  gentle,  patient  motlier   mourns   and   suffers  by 
reason  of  the  atrocious  cruelty  of  her  offspring,  sprung  from  her  womb 
and  nourished  every  instant  of  our  lives  from  her  bosom,  our  crimes  to- 
wards  her  are  those  of  matricides.     We  never  think  for  a  single   iustant 
that  if  her  bounty  were  suspended — if   she   were   to   cease   to   elaborate 
within  her  fruitful  breasts  the  sustenance  essential  to  the  continuance  of 
our  vital  functions,  the  whole  of  the  human  race   would    disappear   and 
our  globe  would  be  as  sterile  as  Sahara  or  the   Polar  ice,   and   "  unless 
these  days  were  shortened,"  some  such  a  calamity  would  certainly  occur, 
because  never  before  in  the  history  of  the  human  race  has   the   work   of 
devastation  proceeded  with  such  frightful  velocity  and   the   consequent 
yearly  increase   of  atmospheric  troubles;  never  before   has   man    been 
armed  with  such  potent  instruments  of  destruction;  never  before   were 
these  employed  simultaneously  in  the  five  great  divisions   of   the   globe; 
never  before  had  the  restless  spirit  of  "  civilized"  man  and   the   various 
appliances  by  land  and  sea  enabled  him  to  penetrate  into  the  heart  of  the 
African,  the  two  American  and  the  Australian  continents,  and  to  leave  no- 
island  unpolluted  by  his  defiling  foot,  no  race  of  "  savages"  untainted  by 
his  deadly  disorders.     All  the   diseases   with   which   the   life  upon   and 
through  the  earth's  surface  teams,  blight  and  murrain,  plague,  fire,  flood, 
blizzard,  earthquake  and  famine,  all  the  unnatural  disorders,  confusion 
and  turbulence  of  the  elements,  all  the  ravages  attributable   to   draught 
and  hurricane;  all  the  contaminations  of  the  atmosphere  and  the   pollu- 
tion of  the  streams  and  water-courses,  are  the  work  of  the  civilized  races. 
We  are  reaping  what  we  have  sown,  we  are  suffering  the  righteous  pen- 
alties  of   our  own   misdeeds   in   earlier   times.     When  we   survey   the 
melancholy  ruins  of  cities  that  were  once  vast  and   populous,   rising   in 
dreary  masses  of  shattered  and  unsightly  masonry  out  of  billowy  hillocks- 
of  sand,  in  the  midst  of  arid  and  sterile  plains,  and  remember  that  these 
places  were  once  surrounded  by  golden  corn-fields  and  leafy  groves,  and 
gardens  that  were  bright  and  fragrant   with   a   tapestry   of  flowers   and 
choicest  of  fruits  encircled  with  umbrageous  forests  in   which  the   deer 
broused,  and  choirs  of  feathered  songsters  made  music  by  day  and  night; 
and  that  noble  rivers,  which  have  entirely  disappeared,  wound  their  way 
in  coils  of  glittering  silver  through  grassy  valleys,  which  afforded  pastur- 
age to  countless  herds  of  sheep  and  cattle,  we  might  well  shudder  at  the 
thought  that  the  crime  of   having  wrought  this  cruel   transformation   is 
chargeable,  not  upon  a  race  which   has  passed  away  from  or   out   of  the 
globe,  but  upon  ourselves.     The  generation   is   unchanged  !     The    same 
evil  and  destructive  minds,  grown  more  evil  and  destructive  by  reason  of 


"  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE^NATIONS."     7 

their  maturity,  are  all  here  now,  and  they  are  repeating  to-day  in  a  much 
more  vicious  form  the  very  acts  of  devastation  which  they  performed  in 
other  parts  one,  two,  three,  four  and  five  thousand  years  ago,  when  Jacob 
gathered  his  sons  together  in  order  that— instructed  by  God— he  might 
tell  them  what  should  befall  them  "in  the  latter  days,"  To  what  does  any 
sane  man  imagine  the  Moat  High  to  refer  to  but  the  last  incarnations  of 
the  twelve  who  were  all  gathered  around  Jesus  1800  years  afterwards,  and 
who  are  all  in  the  flesh  at  this  moment  ?  For  they  had  been  with  'Him 
"  from  the  beginning"  of  time,  and  will  be  so  at  the  end. 

"THAT  WHICH  HATH  BEEN  is  NOW." 

Indeed  the  very  identity  of  human  actions  in  all  ages,  and  in  all 
countries  should  suffice  to  convince  those  who  have  any  understanding 
that  the  same  spirit  of  disobedience  have  been  operating  throughout. 
Once  we  ravaged  and  desolated  a  portion  only  of  the  surface  of  the  globe; 
now  we  ar«  making  haste  to  ruin  the  whole.  Look  at  what  we  have  done 
by  the  wholesale  denudation  of  forests  all  over  the  earth.  Some  of  the 
great  lakes  of  Europe  and  Asia  are  gradually  drying  up,  because  the  loss 
by  natural  evaporation  is  no  longer  compensated  for  by  the  influx  of  tribu- 
tary rivers;  the  volume  of  these  being  sensibly  diminished  by  the  destruction 
of  woods  in  those  regions  in  which  they  have  their  source.*  Thus,  the  level 
of  the  Caspean  Sea,  we  learn,  is  83  feet  lower  than  that  of  the  Sea  of  Azoff, 
and  the  surface  of  the  Lake  Aral  is  fast  sinking.  Twenty  years  ago  it 
was  shown  that  very  large  portions  of  the  Ligurian  province  of  Italy,  i.  e., 
the  Genoese  territory,  had  been  washed  away  or  rendered  incapable  of 
cultivation  in  consequence  of  the  felling  of  the  woods.  In  Lombardy  the 
demolition  of  the  forests  on  the  Appenines  has  led  to  the  most  disastrous 
results.  The  sirrocco  now  prevails  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Po,  injuring 
the  harvest,  crops  and  vineyards;  while  the  blasts  of  wind,  which  sweep 
across  the  country  from  the  south  and  south-west,  now  assume  the  violence 
of  hurricanes,  and  whole  valleys  are  periodically  visited  with  terrible  in- 
undations. In  the  district  of  Mugello  all  the  mulberry  trees  have  been 
destroyed  with  the  exception  of  those  which  were  indebted  to  neighboring 
buildings  for  a  protection  like  that  formerly  afforded  by  the  forests. 
North  of  the  Alps  we  find  the  cultivation  of  the  orange  and  many  other 
fruits  has  had  to  be  abandoned  in  certain  situations  on  account  of  the  late 
spring  frosts,  which  were  unknown  until  the  mountain  ranges  had  been 
stripped  of  their  timber.  Thirty  years  have  sufficed  to  bring  about  these 
climatic  disturbances  in  the  French  Department  of  Ardeche,  as  also  in 
the  plains  of  Alsace,  where  a  much  more  genial  temperature  prevailed,  as 
in  the  United  States  of  America  and  Australia,  before  the  neighboring 
forests  were  cut  down.  In  Sweeden  it  has  been  observed  that  the  spring 
commences  a  fortnight  later  in  these  districts  in  which  the  woods  had 
been  demolished  than  it  did  in  the  last  century. 

France  has  suffered  to  an  immense  extent  by  the  de-foresting  process. 
In  one  department  alone,  that  of  La  Brieime,  200,000  acres  which  were 
once  covered  with  woods  interspersed  with  pastures  are  now  bare  of  tim- 
ber, and  have  been  converted  into  a  dreary  and  malarious  expanse  of  pools 
and  marshes.  The  same  thing  has  happened  on  a  larger  scale  in  La 
Sologne,  where  as  much  as  1,000,000  acres  of  land  that  were  well  wooded, 
well  drained,  and  productive,  are  now  barren  and  desolate.  This  deplor- 
able state  of  things  is  explained  by  a  fact  familiar  to  every  forester,  name- 
ly, that,  trees  are  instruments  of  drainage.  Their  roots  often  pierce 


8     "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  WCTS  FOR  TUB  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS." 

through  subsoil  almost  and  in  many  instances  quite  impervious  to  water, 
and  in  such  cases  the  moisture  which  would  otherwise  remain  above  the 
subsoil  and  convert  the  surface  earth  into  a  bog,  follows  the  roots  down- 
wards into  more  porus  strata,  or  is  received  by  subterranean  canals  or 
reservoirs.  When  the  forest  is  felled  the  roots  perish  and  decay,  the 
orifices  opened  by  them  are  soon  obstructed  and  the  water  having  satur- 
ated the  vegetable  earth-mould  stagnates  and  transforms  it  into  ponds 
and  disease-germ  breeding  morasses. 

In  M.  Marchand's  excellent  work,  entitled  "Les  lorrents  des  Alpes  et  le 
Paturage"  is  the  following  passage  descriptive  of  what  is  now  going  on 
in  the  civilized  world:  "  Unhappily,  man,  improvident  and  avaricious, 
has  frequently  destroyed  tLe  forests  that  he  .may  thereby  get  possession 
of  the  soil.  He  has  substituted  for  them  pasture  grounds,  often  ill 
maintained.  With  the  ruin  of  the  soil  begins  that  of  the  people.  The 
more  unhappy  they  are,  the  more  selfish  do  they  become  (and  the  converse 
of  the  proposition  holds  equally  good)  and  the  more  they  destroy,  so  that 
from  the  time  evil  begins  it  cannot  but  go  on  increasing." 

BOUSSINGAULT. 

Boussingault  speaks  of  the  two  lakes  near  Ubate  in  New  Grenada,  which 
a  century  ago  formed  but  one.  When  he  visited  them  he  found  the  waters 
gradually  retiring,  and  vegetation  encroaching  on  the  abandoned  bed. 
The  enquiries  which  he  instituted,  satisfied  him  that  the  circumstances 
were  attributable  to  the  extensive  clearings  which  were  going  on  all  around 
it.  In  the  same  valley  he  ascertained  that  the  length  of  the  lake  Fuquene 
had  been  reduced  in  five  centuries,  from  ten  leagues  to  one  and  a  half, 
and  its  breadth  from  three  leagues  to  one.  At  the  former  period  the 
neighboring  mountains  were  well  wooded,  but  at  the  time  of  his  visit  they 
had  been  almost  entirely  stripped. 

HUMBOLDT. 

That  close  observer,  Alexander  Von  Humboldt,  noticed  the  same  thing 
in  regard  to  the  Lake  of  Valencia  which  had  been  diminished  from  year 
to  year  because  the  loss  by  evaporation  is  not  made  good  by  precipitation. 
So  rapidly  had  this  been  proceeding  that  some  people  imagined  the  lake 
must  have  a  subteranean  outlet;  but  Humboldt  clearly  perceived  and  has 
lucidly  explained  the  cause:  "  By  felling  the  trees  which  cover  the  tops 
and  sides  of  mountains — he  observes — "  men  in  every  climate  prepare  at 
oace,  two  calamities  for  future  generations,  want  of  fuel  and  scarcity  of 
water.  Trees  by  the  nature  of  their  perspiration  and  the  radiation  from 
their  leaves  in  a  sky  without  clouds — as  in  the  regions  of  which  he  was 
writing — surround  themselves  with  an  atmosphere  constantly  cold  and 
misty.  They  aft'ect  the  copiousness  of  springs,  not  as  was  long  believed 
by  a  peculiar  attraction  for  the  vapors  diffused  through  the  air,  but  be- 
cause by  sheltering  the  soil  from  the  direct  action  of  the  sun  they  diminish 
the  evaporation  of  water  produced  by  rain.  When  forests  are  destroyed 
as  they  are  everywhere  in  America  by  European  planters,  with  imprudent 
precipitancy,  the  springs  are  entirely  dried  up,  or  become  less  abundant. 
The  beds  of  the  rivers  remaining  dry  during  a  part  of  the  year,  are  con- 
verted into  torrents  wherever  great  rains  fall  on  the  heights.  Hence,  it 
results  that  the  clearing  of  forests,  the  want  of  permanent  springs  and  the 
existence  of  torrents  are  three  phenomena  closely  connected  together." 
Humboldt  might  safely  have  added  another  and  equally  serious  phenomena 
namely,  a  foul  destructive  insect  pest  breeding  atmosphere. 


"  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS."  9 

REBOISEMENT    IN   FRANCE. 

Dr.  Brown's  valuable  work  on  "  Reboisement  in  France,"  which  con- 
tains the  essence  of  many  previous  books  on  the  same  subject,  and  notably 
that  of  M.  Surell's  "  Etude  sur  les  Torrents  des  Hautes  Alpes"  deals  ex- 
clusively with  the  causes,  consequences  and  correctives  of  the  Alpine  tor- 
rents; proves  that  man  is  responsible  for  them,  exhibits  their  appalling 
effects,  and  describes  what  measures  have  been  or  ought  to  be  taken,  to 
•check  the  growth  of  this  terrible  evil.  Dr.  Brown,  page  46,  alludes  to 
the  torrent  producing  cause  as  follows:  "  Seeing  then  a  very  remarkable 
•double  fact;  everywhere  where  there  are  recent  torrents,  there  are  no  more 
forests;  and  wherever  the  soil  has  been  stripped  of  wood,  recent  torrents 
have  been  formed;  so  that  the  same  eyes  which  have  seen  the  forests  felled 
on  the  slope  of  a  mountain,  have  there  seen  incontinently  a  multitude  of 
torrents.  The  whole  population  of  this  country  (the  sub-Alpine  region) 
may  be  summoned  to  bear  testimony  to  these  remarks.  There  is  not  a 
commune  where  one  may  not  hear  from  old  men,  that  on  such  a  hillside 
now  naked  and  devoured  by  the  waters  there  have  been  formerly  tine 
forests  standing,  without  a  torrent."  Nothing  can  be  simpler  than  the 
relationship  of  cause  and  effect  in  this  case. 

A   FEW   OF  THE   FRUITS   FROM   WHOLESALE  FOREST   DESTRUCTION. 

A  little  over  two  years  ago  the  following  appalling  particulars  appeared 
under  the  heading  of  "  The  Unfortunate  States"  in  the  London  Evening 
Standard,  and  reappeared  in  the  Melbourne  (Australk)  Daily  Telegraph 
of  September  20th,  1890  :  — 

"  The  United  States  are  at  present  suffering  from  a  varied  series  of  calamities. 
Daring  tbe  last  few  months  cyclones  have  again  and  again  swept  over  broad  acres 
of  the  country,  and  now  within  the  space  of  four  and  twenty  hours  earthquakes, 
rainstorms  and  tornadoes  have  been  doing  their  worst  to  make  many  parts  of  the 
country,  from  New  York  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  less  endurable  than  ever.  . 

.  The  torrents  ot  rain  commenced,  no  doubt,  with  the  tornadoes,  which 
have,  however,  been  more  destructive,  while  the  latter  have  not,  it  seems,  extend- 
ed over  so  wide  an  extent  as  u^ual.  Tlie  most  aggravating  feature  about  these 
great  wind-storms  is  that  by  no  possible  contrivance  can  they  be  either  lessened 
in  violence  or  their  effects  diminished  by  one  iota.  On  the  contrary,  as  time 
advances  and  the  country  gets  more  thickly  settled  (on  deforested  soil]  their 
destructiveness  mutt  necessarily  become  greater  (the  italics  are  mine).  All 
that  science  is  likely  to  ascertain  regarding  their  origin,  nature  and  progress,  have 
been  already  garnered  into  ample  repertories  of  American  ineterology,  and 
though,  thanks  to  the  recent  researches  of  Farrell,  Davis  and  Hogan,  the  theory 
of  the  cyclone  and  tornado  is  now  almost  perfect.  This  perfection  affords  no  hope 
of  the  future  bringing  any  relief  to  the  sorely-tried  dwellers  in  the  western  States. 
The  many  peculiarities  of  the  American  climate  are  due  to  the  unique  position  of 
the  new  world,  and  especially  of  the  United  States,  in  being  placed  between  two 
oceans,  and  bounded  on  the  south  by  a  tropical  sea  like  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and 
on  the  north  by  the  eternal  ice  of  the  Polar  ocean.  Its  breadth  is  also  productive 
of  inconvenient  consequences,  thus  while  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  sides  of  the  Con- 
tinent are,  so  far  as  they  can  be  reached  by  the  moist  breezes  from  either  ocean  in 
the  enjoyment  of  a  plentiful  rainfall,  the  central  region  of  the  prairies  is  dry  and 
arid  for  the  greater  part  of  the  year,  extremely  cold  in  winter,  and  more  than 
usually  warm  in  summer.  The  latter  circumstance,  to  a  large  '  extent,  accounts 
for  this  section  of  the  United  States  being  the  scene  of  the  violejit  rainstorms  and 
wniilwincls  which  have  of  late  years  attracted  more  and  more  attention  owing  to 
their  frequency  and  the  loss  they  cause  to  life  and  property.  Earthquakes,  though 
by  no  means  rare  in  the  Mississippi  valley,  are  neither  so  numerous  or  so  violent 
as  in  California.  Whirlwinds  are  common  features  of  every  dry  hot  region,  being 


10    "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS. 

due  to  a  disturbance  in  the  equilibrium  of  the  atmosphere  by  the  excessive  rare- 
fraction  of  the  air  at  one  particular  spot  with  the  sudden  inrush  from  several  direc- 
tions to  fill  up  the  vacuity  thus  caused  ;  of  these  the  sand-pillars  of  the  Asiatic  and 
African  deserts  are  the  most  striking  concomitants,  while  at  sea  the  water  spouts 
form  the  equivalent  of  the  sand  pillars  which  are  the  materialized  bases  ot  the 
"afreets"  of  the  Oriental  mythology  upon  the  land. 

"The  revolving  of  circular  storms  variously  known  as  cyclones,   tornadoes  ^and 
hurricanes  are  in  some  respect  different  from  these.     Indeed,   though   a  cycione 
and  a  tornado  are  in  ordinary  parlance  considered  synonymous  terms,  they  are 
metereologically  distinguished  by  various  points,  special  to  each  of  them.  _  Thus, 
though  a  cyclone  is  generally  understood  to  be  a  storm  of  extraordinary  violence, 
it  must  be  remembered  that  the  gentlest  inflow  of  the  air  to  fill  up  a  vacuum  is  in 
kind,  if  not  in  degree,  identical  with  the  wildest  hurricane  which  levels  everything 
in  its  tract,  but  still  they  differ  in  some  minor  characteristics.    Thus  the  great 
circular  storms  which  destroy  such  enormous  masses  of  property,   and  often  so 
many  lives,  are  confined  to  certain  areas,  none  of  which  are  on  the  equator  as  y.t. 
In  America,  the  Mississippi  valley  particularly,   the  broad  strip  from  western 
Ohio  to  Colorado  is  the  district  which  suffers  most,"  (every  other  State  now,  1893,. 
more  or  less  participates  in  the  climatic  disturbances)  "and  though  not  confined 
to  any  period  of  the  year,  the  storms  are  most  frequent  in  April,  May,  June  and 
July,  and  on  the  afternoons  of  the  days  rendered  memorable  by  their  occurrence. 
The  ordinary  whirlwind  is  to  be  traced  to  a  thin  layer  of  heat,   and  therefore  at- 
tenuated air  next  the  ground,  which  is,  however,  of  top  small  an  extent  to  pre- 
cipitate any  powerful  movement  of  the  atmosphere  in  its  upward  whirling.     The 
tornado,  which  on  the  other  hand,  is  due  (so  Farrell,  the  latest  of  the  tornado  in- 
vestigators, says)  to  a  thick  layer  of  hot,   moist  air   between   the  earth   and  the 
denser  upper  atmosphere  in  rising  is  cooled  by  expansion,  0nd  the  invisible  vapor 
with  which  it  is  laden  condensed,  thus  liberating  a  large  amount  of  latent  heat."" 
(Only  from  deforested  and  prairie  lands).     "Tnis  latent  heat  still  further  rarefies 
the  current  of  ascending  air  rushing  in  on  all  sides  to  fill  up  the  vacuum  thus  cre- 
ated.    In  this  manner  the  layer  of  heated  air,  owing  to  its  great  thickness,  causes 
in  its  upward  movement  a  correspondingly  violent  disturbance  of  the  atmospheric 
equilibrium."     (Blind  indeed  must  we  be  to  overlook  the  fact  that  a  terribly  des- 
tructive "  thick  layer  of  hot,  moist  air  between  the  earth  and  the  denser  upper 
atmosphere,"  could  not  exist  were  the  earth's  forest  lungs  thoroughly  restored  and 
properly  sustained  in  and  around  those  severely  afflicted  parts,  as  the  primary  hot 
moist  air  creating  cause  would  then  be  greatly  diminished  besides  providing  abun- 
dant leafy  absorbing  reservoirs  to  profitably  entertain  all  such   vacuum   forming 
air).     "But,"  continues  the  writer,  "whether  the  storm  is  the  comprehensive 
cyclone  or  the  narrower  but  fiercer  variety  of  it,  known  as  the  tornado,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  differentiate  between  the  damage  done  by  the  one  and  that  which  follows 
in  the  train  of  the  other.    Little  warning  is  accorded  the  ill-fated  settler  of  the  ap- 
proach of  the  winged  monster  whose  appearance  drives  away  every  thought  save 
that  of  flight  to  some  underground  cavern" — a  nice  prospect  for  agriculturists — 
"since  few  ordinary  buildings  are  strong  enough  to  resist  the  full  impetus  of  such 
a  wind.    Dark  and  threatening  clouds  appear  in  the  west,  and  a  lurid  or  greenish 
tinge  suffuses  the  sky  in  the  same  quarter  towards  the  south,  clouds  of  dust  soon 
follow,  concealing  the  funnel-shaped  ckmd  in  the  rear,  then,  as  the  tornado  nears, 
an  indescribable  loud  roar  is  heard.    The  bellowing  of  a  million  of  mad  bulls  and 
the  roar  of  ten  thousand  trains  have  been  among  the  similes  suggested,   though, 
perhaps,  a  continuous  roar  or  rumble  of  thunder  may  best  describe  this  dismal 
forerunner  of  the  storm.    But  the  observer  has  little  time  for  reverie.    In  a  few 
moments  the  funnel-shaped  cloud  itself  follows  like  a  great  balloon,  sweeping  the 
neck  round  and  round  with  terrible  fury  ana  destroying  everything  in   its  track. 
In  three  or  four  minutes  it  has  passed  by,  but  in  that  short  space  of  time  the 
staunchest  houses  of  brick  and  stone  have  been  demolished,  and  sorrow  ard  ruin 
spread  all  along  the  path.    Indeed,  so  narrow  is  this  track  that  in  the  great  tor- 
nado of  last  March  (1890)  the  wind  in  many  instances  mowed  a  swath  for  itself, 
levelling  every  building  or  object  in  the  direct  route,  but  leaving  whole  or  partly 
uninjured  those  on  either  side  of  the  mad  rusb.    Men,   women  and   children, 
sheep,  cattle,  pigs  and  horses  are  carried  off  their  feet,  and  even  borue  on  the 


"  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS."    11 

wings  of  the  wind  for  a  considerable  distance  in  spite  of  their  lying  prone  on  the 
ground  or  clinging  to  what  seemed  stationary  objects  ;  railway-  trains  were  over- 
turned and  swept  off  the  line ;  steamboats  sunk  in  the  rivers,  and  large  wooden 
structures  lifted  up  bodily  and  carried  off  several  yards  from  the  place  where  a 
minute  earlier  they  appeared  as  if  immovable.  Owing  to  the  sudden  decrease  in 
the  pressure  of  the  outer  air,  the  atmosphere  within  the  walls  of  the  house  in  the 
course  of  the  storm,  acts  against  the  sides  of  the  structure,  so  that  buildings  which 
might  otherwise  brave  the  blast  are  exploded  as  if  a  spark  had  been  applied  to  a 
roornfull  of  gunpowder.  Fowls  have  been  known  to  be  stripped  of  their  feathers, 
little  streams  emptied  of  their  water,  r  eavy  iron  chains  blown  through  the  air,, 
nails  driven  head-first  into  planks,  stalks  of  Indian  corn  shot  through  a  door,  large 
beams  tossed  with  such  impetus  that  they  penetrated  the  earth  a  foot  or  more, 
and  in  India"  (where  similar  visitations  are  experienced  from  a  similar  cause)  "a 
case  is  on  record  in  which  a  bamboo  was  actually  propelled  through  a  mud  wall 
five  feet  thick  with  a  force  equal  to  that  of  a  cannon  discharging  a  6  Ib  ball." 

ALARMING  DISPATCHES  TO   THE  S.    F.     EXAMINER,     1893. 

ATLANTA,  (Ga.),  March  4. — Georgia  was  visited  by  a  cyclone  last  night 
the  reports  from  which  indicate  great  loss  of  life  and  immense  destruction  of  prop- 
erty. The  town  of  Greenville,  having  1,000  inhabitants,  was  swept  out  of  existence 
with,  however,  the  loss  of  but  one  life.  A  small  town  called  The  Rock,  a  few 
miles  off,  fared  worse,  as  five  lives  were  lost  there.  Near  Barnesville  the  cyclone 
dipped  to  the  ground  again,  and  three  more  people  were  killed.  In  East  Missis- 
sippi the  storm  seemed  to  have  done  great  damage,  completely  wiping  out  the 
three  towns  and  wounding  and  killing  many  people.  The  cyclone,  after  sweeping 
across  Mississippi  and  Alabama,  struck  Georgia  at  a  point  on  the  Chattahoochee 
river  below  Columbus  and  divided  into  two  sections,  one  following  the  course  of 
the  Chattahoochee,  going  north  of  Atlanta,  passing  over  Rome  and  on  through  the 
Blue  Ridge  mountains  into  North  Carolina  ;  the  other  branch  pursued  a  course 
across  the  State  south  of  Macon,  passing  on  north  of  Augusta  and  through  South 
Carolina,  where  it  united  with  the  northern  section,  and  passing  through  Wil- 
mington, N.  C.,  found  its  way  out  into  the  ocean — (to  destroy  the  shipping). 

It  was  a  few  minutes  after  8  o'clock  last  night  when  it  struck  Greenville.  The 
first  building  to  give  way  was  the  Courthouse,  which  was  blown  to  atoms.  In  al- 
most an  instant  the  buildings  generally  began  to  grate  and  fall  from  their  founda- 
tions. The  people,  thoroughly  affrighted;  could  do  nothing-in  the  wreck  and  con- 
fusion which  surrounded  them.  The  night  was  intensely  dark  and  the  weather 
was  bitterly  cold.  The  storm  lasted  but  a  few  minutes,  and  when  it  was  over  the 
people  found  themselves  without  shelter,  and  had  to  go  to  work  to  improvise  such 
covering  as  they  could.  The  fear  that  a  great  many  had  lost  their  lives  added  tc- 
the  terror  of  the  occasion.  Investigation  developed  the  fact  that  but  one  person, 
a  negro,  had  been  killed,  though  a  great  many  of  them  were  wounded,  some  of 
them  severely.  The  Presbyterian  church,  the  postoffice  and  the  college  were 
blown  to  atoms.  The  people  are  in  great  distress  and  all  are  without  homes.  The 
town  is  one  mass  of  ruins,  and  the  damage  is  beyond  description.  The  next  town 
in  the  path  was  Hogansville,  where  several  houses  were  lifted  up  and  carried  two 
miles  where  they  were  dashed  to  the  ground.  The  Rock,  a  hamlet  of  500  inhabi- 
tants in  Pike  county,  suffered  a  loss  of  five  lives.  Among  those  killed  was  Judge 
Riviere,  a  prominent  citizen  of  the  county.  At  a  point  about  ten  miles  west  of 
Barnesville  three  deaths  resulted,  but  it  is  impossible  to  get  their  names.  In  Le 
Grange  four  houses  were  blown  down.  Mrs.  Ross,  a  lady  who  lives  near  Piermort, 
lost  her  life,  and  many  others  were  badly  injured,  some  fatally.  The  storm's 
course  was  down  the  Atlanta  and  Florida  railway  toward  Barnesville,  and  at  Pine 
Mountain,  in  the  neighborhood  around  Barnesville,  the  following  deaths  and  casu- 
alties are  reported  :  Miss  Daisy  Hawkins  and  one  unknown  colored  man  killed; 
near  Piedmont,  two  coloied  children  killed.  There  are  also  numerous  names  be- 
ing furnished  of  persons  who  have  been  injured. 

From  all  along  the  path  of  the  storm  come  reports  of  the  loss  of  life,  which  must 
run  the  Hat  up  to  about  fifty.  The  general  course  of  the  storm,  lay  across  the 
country  out  of  the  lines  of  railway  travel  and  witti  very  little  telegraphic  communi- 


12    "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  W6T6  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS. " 

Cation.  It  followed  the  course  of  what  is  known  as  the  Harris^  county  track. 
Many  of  these  cyclones  have  kept  as  closely  within  the  lines  of  their  predecessors 
as  if  their  course  had  been  laid  out  by  an  engineer. 

The  maximum  wind  velocity  in  Atlanta  to-day  was  forty-four  miles  an  hour,  Ine 
hardest  blow  here  last  night  was  thirty-six  miles  an  hour.  The  wind  was  blowing 
thirty-six  miles  an  hour  at  Savannah  and  twenty-eight  an  hour  at  Augusta  at  7 
•o'clock  this  morning.  The  Weather  Bureau  synopsis  to-day  shows  that  the  trough 
of  low  barometer  pressure,  which  yesterday  morning  extended  from  Texas  north- 
eastward to  the  New  England  States,  developed  into  a  storm  of  considerable  area 
and  energy,  and  enlarged  toward  the  Atlantic  coast  until  it  covered  the  entire  coun- 
try east  of  the  Mississippi  river,  its  center  being  near  Wilmington,  N.  C.,  with  a 
minimum  pressure  of  29.30  inches. 

MERIDIAN  (Miss.),  March  4.— The  havoc  wrought  by  the  cyclone  in  this  section 
last  night  is  incalculable.  The  scene  at  Marion,  Miss.,  is  one  of  awful  destruction. 
The  main  track  of  the  storm  was  300  yards  wide,  and  everything  in  its  path  was 
swept  away,  the  wreckage  of  houses  being  scattered  for  miles  along  its  course.  The 
cyclone  struck  only  the  northern  portion  of  the  town,  which  is  but  sparsely 
populated.  The  injured  are  J.  Harrison  and  wife,  George  Nailers  and  Mrs.  White. 
Mrs.  Meader  and  her  daughter  were  killed.  Haifa  mile  of  telegraph  poles  were 
blown  down.  Four  settlements  of  neeroes  were  destroyed,  but  no  one  seriously  in- 
jured. The  town  of  Toomsuba  was  almost  completely  wrecked  and  a  number  of 
people  injured.  At  Keating  a  negro  settlement  was  almost  completely  destroyed. 

SPECIAL   DISPATCHES  TO  THE  S.    F.    CHRONICLE. 

MEMPHIS,  (Tenn.),  March  23, 1893. — The  most  destructive  cyclone  in  the  history 
•of  this  section  swept  over  Northern  Mississippi  and  Western  Tennessee  late  this 
afternoon,  leaving  death  and  destruction  in  its  wake.  K^liey,  Miss.,  a  town  of 
about  three  hundred  inhabitants,  was  wiped  off  the  face  of  the  earth,  every  build- 
ing in  the  place  being  totally  demolished.  So  far  as  is  known  twenty-five  people 
were  killed  outright  and  about  sixty  injured.  The  cyclone  reached  Kelley  about 
3:40  o'clock  this  afternoon,  spreading  havoc  in  every  direction.  Long  before  the 
wind  struck  the  town  a  strange  atmospheric  condition  was  noticed.  The  air  grew 
very  dark  and  then  a  moaning  sound  was  heard,  and  finally  a  greenish  colored 
cloud  was  seen  rapidly  approaching  from  the  southwest. 

The  path  of  the  storm  was  about  half  a  mile  wide,  and  everything  in  its  course 
was  picked  up  like  a  straw  and  dashed  to  pieces.  Large  houses  were  crushed  like 
eggshells,  while  giant  forest  trees  were  uprooted  and  their  trunks  were  picked  up 
by  the  whirling  wind  and  carried  for  miles.  The  public  school  building  was  the 
first  to  go  down  before  the  storrn.  The  pupils  had  been  dismissed  only  a  few 
minutes  before  and  most  of  them  had  left  the  building,  which  fact  alone  prevented 
appalling  loss  of  life.  Several  children  were  caught  in  the  ruins,  however,  and 
•crushed  to  death. 

A  row  of  frame  buildings  next  fell  before  the  cyclone's  fury,  and  with  a  loud 
•<?rash  and  a  deafening  roar  they  were  literally  torn  to  kindling  wood  and  the 
fragments  scattered  far  and  wide.  Owing  to  the  darkness  it  is  impossible  to  learn  the 
full  extent  of  the  loss  of  life  and  property.  Trains  from  the  East  reaching  this  city 
late  in  the  afternoon  and  evening  brought  reports  of  widespread  destruction.  The 
.passengers  on  a  Yazoo  and  Mississippi  Valley  train  told  of  the  destruction  of  Tunica, 
Miss.,  and,  while  the  reports  were  slightly  exaggerated,  yet  they  were  in  a  large 
measure  confirmed.  Tunica  suffered  greatlv,  but  the  loss  so  far  as  is  known  was 
confined  solely  to  property.  A  special  from  there  says  the  damage  to  property  will 
run  into  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars. 

About  3:30  p.  M.  the  sky  in  the  southwest  began  to  darken  and  a  low  wailing 
sound  announced  the  storm  coming.  Within  a  few  minutes  the  wind  came  along 
with  terrible  velocity  and  with  a  swish  and  whirl  that  portended  danger.  The  first 
hard  blow  gave  way  to  the  cyclone  and  houses  were  crushed  like  eggshells.  The 
vicious  visitor  lingered  over  and  around  the  town  for  scarcely  two  minutes,  and  yet 
in  that  iime  it  leveled  buildings  unsparingly,  tossing  saloon  and  church  alike  to  the 
ground.  Such  an  unusual  and  unexpected  visitation  stunned  people  and  the  noise 
of  tumbling  roofs  paralyzed  their  miuds  for  the  moment. 


* '  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TBEE  W6T6  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THB  NATIONS."    1£ 

A  partial  calm,  save  for  the  fall  of  heavy  rain,  then  came  and  the  people  rushed 
about  in  great  excitement.  On  one  side  of  the  square,  where  stood  a  handsome- 
building  occcpied  by  the  Knights  of  Pythias  and  Masons,  were  now  only  a  heap  or 
timber  and  beams.  This  was  one  of  the  most  pretentious  buildings  in  town.  The- 
people  on  the  streets  first  noticed  this  wreck,  and  then  they  saw  that  the  roof  of  the 
courthouse  was  gone. 

But  there  was  more  than  this;  there  were  the  cries  and  screams  of  children. 
Men  rushed  to  the  colored  schoolhouse  where  150  children  had  been  gathered  at 
their  lessons.  The  building,  a  two  story  frame,  had  been  blown  down  and  beneath 
the  ruins  was  a  mass  of  struggling  children.  No  lives  were  lost,  but  there  were 
many  maimed  and  crushed,  some  with  broken  arms  and  some  with  fractured  ribs. 
The  work  of  relief  was  at  once  directed  to  the  schoolhouse,  and  the  children  were- 
extricated  from  the  prison  which  the  timbers  formed.  The  full  list  of  the  buildings 
wrecked  cannot  be  obtained  .to- night,  but  it  is  known  that  the  Presbyterian  and 
Methodist  churches  are  totally  wrecked.  In  all  parts  of  the  town  are  piles  of  ruins, 
and  very  few  houses  have  escaped  without  some  damage. 

The  path  of  the  cyclone  appears  to  have  been  twenty  miles  in  width,  although 
the  serious  damages  was  confined  to  a  much  smaller  area.  The  wires  are  down  in 
all  directions.  There  is  no  telegraphic  communication  whatever  with  Nashville 
and  intervening  points,  and  very  little  news  is  obtainable  from  the  places  visited  by 
the  cyclone.  This  city  barely  escaped.  A  heavy  rain  fell  and  a  high  wind  blew  at 
the  time  the  cyclone  raged,  and  it  became  as  dark  as  night  for  thirty  minutes,  but 
no  damage  was  done.  The  train  from  Birmingham,  Ala.,  arrived  several  hours 
late  and  reported  much  damage  between  here  and  Byhalia,  thirty  miles  east. 
Farmhouses,  barns  and  ginbouses  are  reported  unroofed  and  blown  down  all  along: 
the  line.  The  train  was  delayed  by  having  to  stop  at  frequent  intervals  to  chop 
away  large  trees  that  had  been  uprooted  and  blown  across  the  track.  Damage  is 
reported  at  Captville,  Tenn.,  and  Olive  Branch,  Miss.,  but  no  particulars  are- 
obtainable. 

MEMPHIS,  (Tenn.),  March  24,  1893.— The  damage  done  by  yesterday's  cyclone 
in  the  Mississippi  valley  is  enormous.  While  the  loss  of  life  is  not  as  great  as 
was  at  first  reported,  the  damage  to  property  will  reach  $2,000,000.  The  telegranh 
wires  are  still  demoralized  and  reports  are  coming  in  slowly  from  the  storm  dis- 
tricts. It  will  be  several  days  before  the  full  extent  of  the  disaster  will  be  known. 
The  death  list  at  10  p.  M.  foots  up  twenty-three,  while  the  list  of  the  injured  will 
run  up  into  the  hundreds.  The  names  of  the  dead  at  Kelly,  Miss.,  so  far  as  known, 
are:  Harriet  Smith,  Mary  Williams,  Susan  Williams,  and  two  unknown  negro 
women.  The  dead  elsewhere  are:  Richard  Heard  and  Thomas  Heard,  Shubuta, 
Miss.;  Eli  Prince,  Evansville,  Miss.;  Drury  Sumrallsand  his  family  of  nine,  Shaw's, 
Miss.  The  names  of  the  injured  at  Kelly,  so  far  as  known,  are  as  follows:  Richard 
Pine,  wife  and  children,  all  badly  injured  by  the  collapse  of  their  house,  one  fatally; 
Jim  Payne,  so  badly  wounded  about  the  head  and  shoulders  that  he  may  die;  Chris. 
Burford,  internally  injured  and  will  probably  die;  Mrs.  Sarah  Hart,  two  ribs  broken 
and  internally  injured,  may  die;  Marion  Mason,  cut  about  the  head;  Mrs.  Mason, 
badly  hurt  about  the  hips;  Harriet  Branch,  internally  injured;  Gus  Bills,  right  ey& 
knocked  out;  Eph.  McLaughlin,  shoulder  broken;  F.  Wiley  McLaughlin,  arm 
dislocated.  The  injured  at  other  points  are:  S.  K.  Davis,  Crawfordsyille,  Ark.; 
fourteen  negro  tenants  at  Crawfordsville,  Ark.,  more  or  less  seriously  injured;  John 
Carroll,  Spring  Creek,  Tenn.,  struck  by  flying  timber  and  seriously  injured;  twenty- 
one  school-children  at  Tunica,  Miss.,  more  or  less  seriously  injured.  The  majority 
of  those  killed  and  injured  are  negroes. 

The  first  heard  of  the  cyclone  was  in  Northern  Lousiana  and  Southern  Arkan- 
sas. II  crossed  the  Mississippi  a  few  miles  above  Greenville,  devastating  planta- 
tions, wrecking  farmhouses  and  uprooting  giant  forest  trees.  The  path  of  the  storm 
was  about  half  a  mile  wide,  and  nothing  was  left  standing  in  its  track.  The  farst 
fatality  occured  near  Shaw's  station,  Miss.,  where  the  house  of  Drury  Sumrall,  a 
prosperous  colored  farmer,  was  leveled  to  the  ground,  killing  the  entire  family  of 
nine  persons.  The  cyclone  passed  through  the  suburbs  of  Shaw's  and  demolished 
several  residences  and  small  stores,  but  no  one  was  killed.  The  hurricane  tnen 
changed  its  course  slightly  and  traveled  along  the  right  of  way  of  the  Yazooand 
Mississippi  Valley  Railroad  until  it  entered  Cleveland,  Miss.,  where  a  public  school, 


14:    "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS. 

building  and  several  stores  and  residences  were  raised  to  the  ground.    No  fatalities 
occurred  at  Cleveland,  but  several  people  were  struck  by  flying  timbers  and  more 

Leaving  Cleveland  the  cyclone  passed  within  a  mile  of  Clarksdale,  a  town  of  2000 
inhabitants,  and  next  struck  Tunica,  the  county  seat  of  Tunica  county.  Nearly 
every  building  in  the  place  was  wrecked.  The  recently  completed  courthouse  went 
down  before  the  wind.  The  colored  school  building  was  wrecked  and  over  thirty 
children  were  maimed  and  crippled,  some  of  them  being  fatally  injured.  As  the 
cyclone  left  Tunica  it  divided,  one  portion  traveling  in  a  northeasterly  direction 
while  the  other  took  a  northwesterly  course  and  again  crossed  the  Mississippi  into 
Arkansas,  where  it  spread  ruin  in  three  counties.  The  towns  of  Craw  fords  ville 
and  Vincent  were  nearly  wiped  off  the  earth.  The  storm  then  took  a  northeasterly 
course,  reaching  Kelly,  Miss.,  about  4  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  Here  the  great- 
«st  damage  was  done.  Six  people  were  killed  outright  and  scores  were  injured. 
Not  a  building  was  left  standing,  the  fragments  beisg  strewn  over  the  country  for 
miles.  Physicians  from  the  surrounding  towns  hurried  to  the  scene  and  rendered 
all  possible  aid  to  the  sufferers.  Temporary  ho&pitals  were  fitted  up  in  farm- 
houses that  had  escaped  the  storm,  and  those  who  were  fortunate  enough  to  get 
out  uninjured  did  all  in  their  power  to  help  the  sufferers.  The  damage  to  prop- 
erty in  the  vicinity  of  Kelly  will  reach  $150,000.  After  leaving  Kelly  the  cyclone 
passed  into  Tennessee,  the  next  place  visited  being  Spring  Creek,  a  small  town  in 
Madison  county,  where  several  people  were  injured,  but  no  one  was  killed.  No 
reports  of  damage  have  been  received  beyond  Spring  Creek,  except  in  a  suburb  of 
Nashville,.  The  patlr  of  the  storm  after  it  left  Madison  county  was  through  a 
country  remote  from  telegraph  lines,  and  it  will  be  several  days  before  full  details 
will  reach  the  outside  world. 

MOBILLE,  (Ala.),  March  24. — Early  this  morning  a  cyclone  passed  one  mile 
north  of  Shubuta,  Miss.,  going  south  west.  At  Arista  John's  place  a  tenement 
house  containing  negroes  was  leveled  and  two  negroes  were  killed  and  three  were 
injured.  One  mile  east  of  there  houses  were  blown  down.  Ten  miles  further  east 
three  tenement  houses  were  destroyed,  but  no  one  was  hurt. 

NASHVILLE,  (Tenn.),  March  24. — One  of  the  most  terrific  wind  and  rain  storms 
in  the  history  of  Nashville  swept  over  this  city  last  night.  The  greatest  force  of 
the  storm  was  felt  in  the  northern  part  of  the  city,  where  several  houses  were  un- 
roofed. One  occupied  by  W.  F.  Bradford  was  completely  razed  to  the  ground. 
Bradford  was  taken  from  the  luins  in  a  badly  bruised  condition.  McNeil  Drum- 
tight,  aged  13,  who  boarded  with  Bradford,  was  taken  from  the  debris  in  a 
mangled  condition  and  cannot  live.  Eugene  Drumright,  aged  18,  a  brother  of 
McNeil,  was  horribly  mangled  and  dead  when  found.  It  is  feared  others  were  in- 
jured or  killed  in,  the  building.  In  all  fifteen  houses  were  badly  damaged  or  des- 
troyed and  thejpss  will  foot  up  in  the  thousands. 

LOUISVILLE  (Ky.),  March  24. — The  heavy  storm  which  passed  over  a  large  sec- 
tion of  the  South  last  night  did  great  damage  at  Bowling  Green  and  the  surround- 
ing country.  The  roofs  of  fifteen  or  twentv  houses  were  blown  off,  the  most 
serious  damage  being  done  to  the  Louisville  and  Nashville  roundhouses,  which 
were  unroofed  and  the  walls  leveled  with  the  ground.  Falling  material  did  serious 
damage  to  engines  inside.  One  colored  man  was  caught  in  the  debris  and  badly, 
though  not  seriously  injured.  The  loss  on  the  building  and  locomotives  is  from 
$75,000'  to  $100,000.  Passengers  on  the  delayed  fast  express  on  the  Louisville  and 
Nashville  from  the  South  stated  that  all  along  the  road  evidence  of  the  storm  could 
be  seen.  Many  farmhouses  were  roofless,  and  scores  of  stables  and  outhouses 
were  totally  demolished.  The  town  of  Kowlins  was  almost  destroyed,  the  post- 
office  building  being  swept  entirely  away,  while  damage  to  others  was  very  heavy. 
Every  house  in  Stonford  was  damaged.  "  At  Murray,  Ky.,  twenty  residences  and 
fifty  stables  ana  barns  were  demolished.  Only  one  person,  Miss  Aline  Stabblefield, 
was  seriously  injured.  A  dozen  were  slightly  hurt. 

INDIANAPOLIS,  (Ind.),  March  24. — A  cyclonic  storm  visited  Indiana  last  night. 
In  this  city  fifty  houses  were  wrecked  in  one  neighborhood  in  the  northwest  por- 
tion and  many  families  are  temporarily  homeless.  At  Tuxedo,  a  suburb,  many 
houses  are  wrecked  and  several  small  ones  were  carried  away.  The  Capital  City 
Coffin  Works  are  badly  damaged.  Advices  from  all  parts  of  the  State  indicate 


"  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  W6T6  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THB  NATIONS."    15 

that  much  property  is  damaged  and  some  persons  were  maimed.  At  Loogootee 
the  flouring  mill,  the  Catholic  church  and  City  Hotel  were  badly  damaged.  At 
Evansville  the  south  wing  of  the  insane  asylum  was  damaged.  At  McCordsville 
the  house  of  James  McCord  was  blown  down  and  Mrs.  McCord  was  fatally  hurt. 
At  Brazil  outbuildings,  fences  and  trees  were  leveled  and  coal  mines  were  flooded. 
At  Alexandria  residences  and  business  blocks  were  damaged,  and  the  Lippincott 
glass  factory  Was  destroyed,  John  Angle,  Jr.,  being  instantly  killed.  F.  McShaf- 
ery,  Peter  Hanlan,  Ernest  Frey,  James  Branham  and  others  were  seriously  in- 
jured. At  Vincennes  houses,  barns,  trees  and  fences  were  laid  low  for  twelve 
miles.  Several  thousand  dollars  worth  of  property  was  destroyed. 

And  just  for  a  moment  pause  to  consider  the  following  dreadful  sup- 
plementary pictures  clipped  from  the  S.  F.  Examiner  of  April  8th,  9th 
and  10th,  1893:— 

A  TERRIBLE  STORM. 

"DEADWOOD,  (S.  D.),  April  7.— A  terrible  wind  and  snow  storm  has  been  pre- 
vailing here  for  the  past  forty-eight  hours.  Telegraph  and  telephone  wires  have 
been  prostrated,  many  buildings  blown  down  and  others  unroofed.  Piedmont  has 
been  partially  destroyed.  All  the  trains  have  been  tied  up.  The  velocity  of  the 
wind  is  seventy-five  miles  per  hour," 

BUFFALO,  April  8. — One  of  the  worst  cyclones  that  ever  swept  western  New  York 
struck  this  end  of  the  State  yesterday.  Reports  have  been  coming  in  all  day  of 
damage  done  in  Chautauqua  and  Erie'  counties.  As  near  as  can  be  gathered  the 
hurricane  struck  near  Springville,  in  this  county,  ard  then  swept  down  across 
Chautauqua  Lake  and  into  Lake  Frie.  A  dispatch  from  Springville  states  that  a 
barn  belonging  to  Vedder  Hemstreet  was  blown  down.  Mr.  Hemstreet  and  his 
hired  man  were  in  the  barn  with  some  cattle  when  it  collapsed.  The  latter  was 
caught  between  two  cows  and  escaped  unhurt,  though  the  cattle  were  crushed. 
Hemstreet  was  pinned  between  several  timbers  and  died  before  he  could  be  ex- 
tricated. 

At  Brocton,  the  heart  of  the  grape  country,  tremendous  ravages  in  orchards  and 
vineyards  are  reported.  Trees  whre  uprooted  and  buildings  leveled.  At  Westfield 
trees  were  uprooted  and  a  water  tower  and  windmill  were  lifted  bodily  and  moved 
a  couple  of  yards.  The  Lake  Shore  and  Michigan  Southern  tracks  between  Angola 
and  Farnham  were  washed  out.  Fair  buildings  at  Dunkirk  were  demolished. 
Many  cattle  in  Sheridan  were  killed.  Churches,  printing  offices  and  othar  build- 
ings in  Fredonia  were  stripped  of  their  roofs.  At  May  ville  a  boathouse  was  scattered 
over  a  farm  and  Lake  Chautauqua  was  lashed  into  fury.  At  the  Assembly  grounds 
several  handsome  trees  were  shattered  and  broken  and  cottages  twisted  from  their 
foundation.  In  all  these  towns  narrow  escapes  from  death  are  reported. 

The  residence  of  George  H.  Talcott,  at  Talcottville,  Lewis  county,  was  struck  by 
lightning  some  time  during  last  night  and  burned  to  the  ground.  Talcott  and  his 
brother  were  burned  in  the  house,  their  charred  and  blackened  corpses  being  found 
in  the  ruins  this  morning.  The  damage  done  to  the  buildings  by  the  storm  cannot 
be  less  tht*n  $100,000.  It  is  impossible  at  this  writing  to  estimate  the  injury  to  or- 
chards and  vineyards. 

CURSED  BY  CHOLERA. 

[Special  to  the  EXAMINER.] 

LONDON,  April  8.-~If  last  year's  devastations  of  the  scourge  were  not  fresh  in  the 
public  mind,  Europe  would  be  already  in  a  cholera  panic.  The  disease  probably 
exists  to-day  in  a  larger  number  of  towns  than  when  the  epidemic  was  at  its  height 
in  Hamburg  last  summer.  The  criminal  policy  of  concealment  is  again  being  pur- 
sued in  many  places.  The  most  outrageous  are  in  towns  on  the  northern  coast  of 
France,  where  it  is  known  that  nearly  a  hundred  deaths  have  occurred  within  a 
fortnight.  Russia  acknowledges  several  hundred  deaths  over  her  vast  extent  of  ter- 
ritory, and  it  can  only  be  guessed  how  much  this  is  short  of  the  truth. 

Strong  appeals  in  the  advertising  columns  of  the  St.  Petersburg  newspapers  for 
the  services  of  doctors  in  infected  districts  indicate  how  great  is  the  emergency.  Not 


16    "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS." 

a  single  medical  or  scientific  advantage  is  yet  announced  as  the  result  of  the  cholera 
conference  at  Dresden.  The  object  there  sought  has  been  solely  how  to  mitigate 
the  commercial  evils  of  the  epidemic. 

FEARFUL    SHIPWRECKS. 

"  Over  in  Hydrographic  Officer  Burnett's  corner  of  the  Merchants'  Exchange  is  a 
chart  that  seems  to  have  been  drawn  by  somebody  who  had  a  nightmare  of  mean- 
dering red  streaks,  little  red  and  blue  dots  and  crosses,  and  red  and  blue  representa- 
tions of  the  bows  of  partially  submerged  vessels.  It  is  a  wreck  chart  showing  the 
vagarious  driftings  of  the  derelicts  on  the  North  Atlantic  during  the  past  five  years- 
ana  to  the  mind  of  a  nautical  man  is  the  publication  chef  d'oeuvre  of  the  office 
since  Commander  Glover  assumed  charge.  The  best  statistics  obtainable  show  an 
average  annual  loss  of  2,172  vessels  and  12,000  lives  in  the  marine  commerce  of  the 
world,  entailing  monetary  losses  amounting  to  $100,000,000.  In  the  period  of  five 
years  covered  by  the  chart  there  were  956  vessels  wrecked  on  the  Atlantic  coast,, 
and  in  the  same  time  1,096  vessels  were  abandoned  and  left  to  drift  about  the  ocean 
and  menace  the  safety  of  navigators  whose  courses  might  lay  in  the  way  of  the  drift- 
ers. Of  this  thousand  and  odd  eraft  there  were  625  unknown;  332  have  been  located 
once  or  more,  and  139  have  been  sighted  so  often  as  to  permit  of  their  drift  tracks- 
being  charted.'* 

FIERCE  FOREST  FIRES. 

[Special  to  the  EXAMINER.] 

CINCINNATI,  April  9. — Dispatches  from  Vanceboro,  Lewis  county,  Ky.,  on  the 
Ohio  river,  seventv-five  miles  from  Cincinnati,  says  that  fires  in  the  forests  in  that 
country  broke  out  several  days  ago  and  have  spread  over  the  whole  country.  Last 
night,  from  Clarksville,  in  Lewis  county,  to  Sugar  Loaf  mountain,  the  whole  country 
was  one  vast  sea  of  flames.  Fences  have  been  destroyed  everywhere,  and  the  houses- 
of  many  farmers  have  been  burned.  A  dispatch  from  Chillicothe  says  that  exten- 
sive fires  are  raging  in  the  hill  forests  near  Bainbridge,  Ross  county,  and  are  spread- 
ing in  the  hills  of  Pike  and  Highland  counties,  near  by,  doing  great  damage. 

PORTSMOUTH  (O.),  April  9. — For  the  past  two  weeks  very  strong  and  dangerous- 
forest  fires  have  prevailed  west  of  the  Scoto  river.  The  hamlets  of  Union  Mills  and 
Friendship  were  surrounded  by  fire,  but  rain  saved  them.  At  present  the  fire  i» 
smoldering  and  another  rain  will  quench  it.  The  loss,  it  is  estimated,  will  exceed 
$200,000  in  timber,  etc.,  that  was  burned,  not  counting  a  score  of  farm  buildings; 
swept  away. 

I  have  thus  fully  quoted  a  few  of  many  such  like  newspaper  reports 
relating  to  awfully  disastrous  atmospheric  troubles  which  of  late  years 
have  caused  wide-spread  ruin  through  very  many  portions  of  this  great 
country  and  on  the  sea,  the  former  to  show  the  special  necessity  which  really 
exists  for  a  whole-hearted  restoration  and  preservation  of  forests  because  of 
"the  unique  position  of  the  new  world"  so  graphically  detailed  by  the  writer, 
and  the  others  to  illustrate  the  dreadfully  savage  and  increasingly  erratic 
nature  of  recent  storms  which  compel  long-suffering  agriculturists  and 
others  to  burrow  through  underground  caverns  so  as  to  escape  being 
swept  away  and  destroyed  with  their  homesteads  !  Surely  such  atmos- 
pheric conditions  are  the  very  reverse  of  normal  ? 

Professor  J.  E.  Buchanan,  M.  D.,  of  New  York,  who  published  a  book 
some  years  ago  pleading  for  the  establishment  of  ethical  and  industrial 
education,  and  who  has  further  published  a  manual  of  psychometry  in 
which  he  made  several  predictions,  which  have  been  verified,  published 
in  the  Arena  for  August,  1890,  a  most  alarming  paper,  entitled,  "  The 
Coming  Cataclysm  of  America  and  Europe,"  leading  up  to  terrible 
devastating  torrental  storms,  earthquakes  and  almost  general  barrenness, 
extending  over  vast  regions,  making  special  mention  of  American  and 
continental  deforestation  as  a  primary  cause. 


"  THE  LEA.VES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS."         17 
FOREST    DESTROYING    COMBINES. 

And  this  is  how,  for  many  years,  forests  have  disappeared  in  addition 
to  the  selectors  clearings  in  America.  I  quote  from  Harper's  Weekly  for 
July  18th,  1891  : 

"The  condition  of  lumber  mills  and  saw  mills  in  Michigan,  Wisconsin  and  Min- 
nesota, 1890,  has  been  announced.  Only  planing  mills  operated  by  lumber  manu- 
facturers in  connection  with  lumber  mills  include  only  those  which  manufacture 
sawed  lumber  as  the  principle  product,  the  term  "  saw-mills"  meaning  all  other 
mills  in  which  logs  or  bolts  form  the  principle  raw-material,  and  are  manufac- 
tured into  any  kind  of  product  other  than  lumber.  The  valae  of  forest  products, 
not  manufactured  at  the  mill,  in  Michigan,  Wisconsin  and  Minnesota,  1890,  ag- 
gregates $30,426  194;  value  of  mill  products  $115,699  004;  value  of  re-manufac- 
tures $21,112.618— making  an  aggregate  value  of  products  in  three  States  of 
$167,237.816.  The  capital  invested  to  produce  this  value  was  $270,152  012.  Men 
employed  in  forests,  95,258;  women,  99;  children,  10;  animals,  32,491.  In  th» 
mills,  the  product  required  the  labor  of  87.939  men,  646  women,  and  653  children. 
The  amount  represented  in  operation  of  machinery  and  chemical  appliances, 
1890,  was  $23.559.334;  the  expenditure  of  steam  and  water  power  was  reported  as 
sufficient  to  lift  3,500,001  tons  one  foot  in  one  minute;  1,262,151,180  cubic  feet  of 
merchantable  timber  were  removed  from  natural  growth;  $7,890.254  were  in- 
vested in  vessels  and  other  means  of  transport,  and  $99,688.256  were  expended  for 
wages.  The  aggregate  increase  of  product  since  1880  is  reported  to  be  29.66  per 
cent,  in  quantity  and  57.92  per  cent,  in  value." 

In  the  three  States  named  above  there  are  9-q3  establishments — operating  mills, 
with  a  capital  invested  in  timbered  land  of  $85,381.446,  the  area  being  6.818,941 
acres,  with  an  estimated  total  product  of  merchantable  timber  of  43,133,886,209 
feet  (board  measure).  The  estimated  value  of  standing  timber  owned  by  these  es- 
tablishments is  $135,612,007.  White  pine  is  by  far  the  most  important  product, 
the  total  on  timber  land  is  estimated  to  be  47,304,  557,519  feet. 

TIMBER  PRODUCTS— The  aggregate  number  of  establishments  engaged  in  the 
"  timber  product"  industry  in  Michigan,  Wisconsin  and  Minnesota  is  574,  with  a 
capital  of  $46  765,405.  The  product  of  logs  for  domestic  manufacture,  1890,  is 
shown  as  1,392.585,874  feet,  that  of  hard  wood  and  other  logs  for  export  being 
33,115,000  feet." 

When  we  add  to  the  above  an  estimate  of  the  annual  demolition  of  tim- 
ber in  Oregon  and  other  States  all  over  the  Union,  as  also  in  Canada,  for 
general  and  now  for  paper  making  purposes,  coupled  with  wholesale  for- 
est fires  caused  in  nearly  every  instance  from  criminal  carelessness,  we 
should  not  very  much  wonder  at  the  dreadful  results  now  upon  us.  But 
for  the  rapidly  increasing  atmospheric  penalties  we  would— as  they  do  in 
"  treeles  Spain,"  continue  to  annihilate  every  health  inspiring  tree  for  a 
temporary  selfish  gain,  and  then  ineffectually  strive  to  extirpate  the 
many  consequent  destructive  insect  plagues  which,  as  "nature's  scavengers'* 
are  evolved  and  thrive  in  the  poisonous  atmosphere  which  our  troe  killing 
conduct  creates.  The  Italian  poet,  "  Dante"  when  penning  his  "  Inferno" 
early  in  the  14th  century,  was  evidently  permitted  to  forsee  the  outcome 
of  our  heartless  ingratitude  towards  our  revengeless  tree  friends'  in  these 
latter  days,  when  lie  wrote  the  following  lines: — 

DANTE'S  INFERNO. 

"E'er  Nessus  yet  had  reached  the  other  bank 

We  entered  on  a  forest,  where  no  track 

Of  steps  had  worn  away,  Not  verdant  there 
The  foliage,  but  of  dusky  hue;  not  light 
The  boughs  and  tapering,  but  with  knares  deform'd 
And  matted  thick:  fruits  there  were  none,  but  thorns 


i8    *'  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOB  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS." 

Instead  with  venom  filled.     Less  sharp  than  these 

Less  intricate  the  breakes,  wherein  abide 

Those  animals  (insect  pests')  that  hate  the  cultured  fields 

On  all  sides 

I  heard  sad  plainings  breathe,  and  none  could  see 
From  whom  they  might  have  issued.     In  amaze 
Fast  bound  I  stood.     He,  (the  inward  guide)  as  it  seem'd  believed 
That  I  had  thought  so  many  voices  came 
From  some  amid  those  thickets  close  conceal'd, 
And  thus  his  speech  resumed:     "  If  thou  lop  off 
A  single  twig  from  one  of  those  ill  plants, 
"The  thought  thou  hast  conceived  shall  vanish  quite" 

Thereat  a  little  stretching  'forth  my  hand, 
From  a  great  wilding  gather'd  I  a  branch, 
And  straight  the  trunk  exclaim'd:    "  Why  pluck'st  thou  me?" 
Then  as  the  dark  blood  trickled  down  its  side, 
These  words  it  added:     "Wherefore  tear'st  me  thus? 
Is  there  no  touch  of  mercy  in  thy  breast? 
Men  once  were  we  that  now  are  rooted  here,  * 

Thy  hand  might  well  have  spared  us,  had  we  been 

The  souls  of  serpents."  (*  PSALM  139,  15-16) 

FOREST  LAND  PREFERRED  FOR  SETTLEMENT. 

As  in  the  United  States  and  Canada  so  in  Australia,  forest  lands  were 
preferred  by  selectors  for  farming  on,  and  after  our  thirty  years  of  reck- 
less toil,  many  millions  of  acres  once  clad  with  stately  malaria  destroying 
eucalypti  whose  gorgeous  atmosphere  purifying  and  rain  attracting  foliage 
formed  a  beautiful  canopy  of  variegated  colors  under  and  around  which,, 
weeds  and  insect  pests  could  not  exist,  now  form  very  many  unsightly,  be- 
cause parched  weed  and  insect  breeding  fields,  made  hideous  alike  to  the 
misguided  owners  and  leasees  as  also  to  the  weary  traveller  throughout 
the  "  settled5'  districts,  by  being  compelled  to  gaze  on  monotonous  forests 
of  weather  bleeched  dead  tree  skeletons,  left  standing  as  so  many  reprov- 
ing spectres  on  large  areas  of  sun  baked  agricultural  and  pastoral  lands. 

New  South  Wales — the  oldest  Australian  colony,  originally  known  as- 
"  the  Botany  Bay  convict  settlement"  has  provided  ample  insect  plague 
breeding  fields  for  the  whole  group.  Ticket  of  leave  convicts  and  crown 
pastoralists  having  added  small  orchards  and  vineyards  to  their  respective 
homestead  belongings  which  in  course  of  time  from  various  avoidable 
reasons,  were  permitted  to  run  wild  in  exhausted  soil,  thereby  furnishing 
the  necessary  insect  breeding  conditions,  which  eventually  charged  the 
passing  winds  with  destructive  germs.  The  following  dispatch  clipped 
from  the  Sydney  Daily  Telegraph  of  February  4th  last,  faintly  illustrates 
some  of  the  results: — 

ADELAIDE,  Friday. — The  Crown  Lands  Department  reports  that  the  ravages  of 
the  codlin  moth,  rather  than  diminishing,  are  spreading  amongst  the  apple  or- 
chards. Spraying  with  Paris  green  has  been  resorted  to,  without  satisfactory  re- 
salts.  There  are  now  more  infected  orchards  than  last  season,  and  the  damage  to 
fruit  has  been  enormous.  There  are  at  present  169  orchards  affected  in  the  colony. 

Whilst  the  forests  remained  in  tact,  through  neighboring  colonies,  des- 
tructive insect  raids  from  said  fields  were  however  comparatively  harmless. 
Early  in  1870,  about  eight  years  subsequent  to  the  first  general  land 
selecting  scramble  for  agricultural  settlement  in  the  colony  of  Victoria,  I 
observed  myriads  of  minute  little  grasshoppers  like  so  many  sand  ripples, 
in  a  remote  arid  portion  of  said  colony  adjacent  to  the  New  South  Wales 


11  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS."    19 

border  line,  slowly  but  steadily  making  their  way  towards  the  settled 
districts,  and  although  the  leading  authorities  were  duly  notified  of  the  in- 
vasion, little  or  no  heed  was  taken  of  the  warning — the  supposition  being 
that  they  would  "  perish  on  their  way  south."  In  a  very  short  time  they 
developed  into  the  fledged  condition  and  forth  with  set  about  their  devasta- 
ting work  in  right  good  earnest  as  the  following  report  from  the  Mel- 
bourne Age  of  March  23,  1891  will  show: 

AN  AUSTRALIAN   CONFERENCE  RE-LOCUST  PLAGUES. 

Said  report  refers  to  an  extraordinary  conference  of  leading  vignerons 
prchardists,  agriculturists  and  shire  councillors  held  in  the  Koyal  Victor- 
ian Society's  rooms,  Melbourne,  on  the  20th  of  said  month,  at  which  I 
was  present.  The  object  of  the  conference  being  to,  if  possible,  devise 
legislative  or  other  means  to  save  the  colony  from  continuous  visitations 
of  destructive  locust  blizzards: — "The  chairman  opened  the  meeting  by 
reading  a  "  circular  suggesting  that  the  conference  should  be  held,  signed 
by  Mr.  Samuel  Trethowan  of  Nathalia,  from  which  circular  the  following 
is  an  extract.  "  In  view  of  the  deplorable  destruction  caused  througout 
the  colony  by  the  locust  plague,  I  feel  impelled  to  seek  your  valuable  as- 
sistance in  devising  means  to  prevent  a  repetition  of  such  disastrous  in- 
vasions," (as  during  Dec.  of  the  previous  year).  "  I  have  been  a  settler 
in  the  colony  for  thirty-five  years,  and  never  before  saw  such  myriads  of 
locusts  as  have  just  passed  over  the  land;  devouring  every  green  leaf  and 
shoot.  I  believe  the  time  to  be  opportune  for  the  taking  of  energetic  and 
concerted  action  to  destroy  these  voracious  insects  before  they  turn  our 
homes  and  holdings  into  permanent  scenes  of  bare  and  naked  desolation. 
I  have,  myself  suffered  to  the  extent  of  losing  every  leaf,  shoot  and  bud 
on  an  orchard  and  vineyard  of  one  hundred  acres  in  extent,  besides  the 
loss  of  grass  and  substance  for  my  stock  on  several  thousand  acres  of  land, 
and  also  the  loss  of  a  considerable  portion  of  my  crop  of  grain  as  well.  By 
the  visitation  of  this  scourge  a  crushing  blow  has  been  dealt  to  the  pros- 
pects of  intense  culture  in  this  fertile  but  insect  infested  region,  and  the 
Government  may  well  be  asked  to  stay  any  further  expenditure  on  vast 
irregation  schemes  until  some  means  are  found  to  repress  this  terrible 

Eest,  for  the  result  of  years  of  patient  labor  of  an  industrious  settler  may 
e  ruthlessly  destroyed  in  a  few  hours  by  these  destructive  insects.  I  am 
sure  I  am  within  the  mark  when  I  estimate  the  loss  to  the  colony  to  be 
several  hundreds  of  thousands  of  pounds,  for,  apart  from  the  destruction 
of  gardens,  orchards  and  vineyards,  graziers  have  been  compelled  to  sell 
their  stock  at  a  sacrifice,  in  consequence  of  the  destruction  of  everything 
that  could  be  eaten  in  the  paddocks  by  these  ravenous  pests.  Practically 
the  whole  of  the  northern  part  of  Victoria  is  now  denuded  of  every  suc- 
culent blade  or  shoot  and  the  choicer  and  more  careful  the  cultivation  the 
greater  has  been  the  havoc  made. 

"  Something  must  be  done  or  the  land  will  become  an  uninhabitable 
wilderness,  for  the  locusts  are  now  breeding,  and  before  the  summer  is 
over  they  will  be  upon  us  again  in  even  more  overwhelming  numbers  than 
those  just  passed  over.  The  rabbits  have  been  and  are  a  terrible  scourge, 
yet  their  destructiveness  pales  into  insignificance  when  compared  to  the 
ravages  of  the  vast  armies  of  winged  and  wingless  locusts. 

"  The  scourge  is  an  Australian  and  the  question  of  legislation  a  federal 
one  demanding  simultaneous  action  by  the  governments  of  the  several 
colonies  in  order  to  be  effectual."  "  The  chairman  said  he  agreed  with 


20    "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS/' 

Mr.  Trethowan We  are  threatened  with  a  far  greater  invasion  by  the 

locusts,  an  invasion  which,  if  not  checked  by  some  means,  would  eventu- 
ally devastate  the  whole  colony."  The  conference  unanimously  endorsed 
the  chairman's  opinion  and  appointed  a  large  representative  committee  to 
confer  with  the  Hon.  the  minister  of  agriculture  on  the  subject. 

The  three  leading  agricultural  colonies  within  one  month  suffered  from 
the  said  locust  visitation  to  the  extent  of  about  one  million  eight  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  pounds  (i.  e.  $9,250,000)  as  follows— New  South  Wales 
£450,000($2,250,000),  Victoria  £600,000  ($3,000,000)  and  South  Australia 
£800,000  ($4,000,000).  Queensland  also  suffered  much  from  the  invasion. 
Since  then  the  Chaffey  Brothers'  magnificent  Mildura  irrigation  colony  in 
Victoria  was  invaded  by  dense  clouds  of  locusts  and  for  nearly  a  whole 
month  seemed  as  if  they  meant  to  permanently  locate  there  and  in  the 
immediate  neighborhood,  in  order  to  dispute  the  Chaffey  Brothers'  right 
to  have  transformed  that  once  arid  barren  region  into  a  beautiful  fertile 
garden. 

A   FALSE   RKPORT. 

Ab  mt  the  time  the  above  locust  trouble  overspread  the  Mildura  district 
a  very  silly  theoretical  suggestion  was  made  by  the  chief  Entomologist  in 
Victoria  to  the  local  government  at  Albury,  N.   S.   W.,   namely,  to  erect 
screens  over  trenches  in  order  to  stop  the  plague,  coupling  the  suggestion 
with  an  absurd  estimate  of  the  cost  per  mile  of  such,  which,   when  en- 
quired into  was  found  to  be  utterly  useless  if  adopted,  besides  being  greatly 
underestimated  as  to  cost.     On  the  scheme  being  ridiculed  by  an  expert 
through   the   local   press,    the   Victorian   secretary    for   agriculture   ac- 
knowledged his  entomologists  error  and  withdrew  the  proposition.     After 
the  dense  clouds  of  locusts  had  devoted  the  greater  part  of  a  month  gorg- 
ing themselves  with  the  very  choice  products  in  the  Mildura  estate,  they 
passed  on  towards  the  adjacent  colony  of  South  Australia,  leaving  a  few 
hundreds  scattered  about,  dead  and  dying,  from  possibly,  the  eating  of 
tomato  plants.     About  sixty  of  the  dead  were  found  to  be  fly- blown,  which 
fact  was  carefully  figured  up  by  a  humorous  newspaper  man,  who  wrote  a 
sensational  paragraph  concerning  "a  wonderful  locust  destroying  fly,"  etc., 
which  paragraph  has  evidently  been  seriously  considered  by  the  State  of 
California  Horticultural  Department,  as  the  following  from  the  fertile  pen 
of  the  State  Entomologist  published  in  the  S.  F.   Examiner  of  Eebruary 
2nd  last,  denotes: — "An  effort  has  been  made  among  others,  to  introduce 
a  parasite  of  the  grasshopper  which  is  found  in  Australia,  where  it  has 
accomplished  very  excellent  work,  this  is  a  fly  a  species  of  Tachina,  which 
feeds  as  voraciously  on  the  grasshopper  as  the  latter  does  on  vegetation, 
and   has   contributed  very   much    toward   keeping   down   that   pest   in 
Australia  ( !)     The  egg  is  deposited  by  the  female  in  the  body  of  the  grass- 
hopper and  hatches  there.     The  young  grub  lives  upon  the  adipose  tissue 
of  the  victim  and  avoids  the  vital  part  until  it  is  matured,  sometimes  several 
of  these  grubs  may  be  found  in  the  grasshopper.     When  full  grown  the 
grubs  eat  their  way  out  of  their  victim,  usually  at  the  side  where  the  ab- 
domen and  the  matathorax  meet.     As  soon  as  the  grub  escapes, the  grass- 
hopper, which  has  been  growing  weaker  as  his  parasite  has  grown  in  side 
dies.     The  grub  then  buries  itself  in  the  earth  and  undergoes  its  trans- 
formation, immerging  a  perfect  insect.     Examination  proved  in  one  case 
that  sixty  or  seventy  per  cent,  of  the  grasshoppers  in  one  part  of  Australia 
were  parasited  by  the  insects." — (Not  one  of  those  wonderful  flies  have 
been  as  yet  captured). 


11  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  W6T6  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS."    21 

During  my  observations  anent  the  early  invasion  of  said  tiny  grass- 
hoppers, I  noticed  that  their  onward  progress  towards  the  settled  districts 
was  invariably  impeded  by  the  existence  of  any  intervening  clumps  of 
eycalypti  saplings  or  trees,  as  also  scattered  eucalypti  leaves'causing  the 
whole  mass  to  make  wide  detours  away  from  such.  I  was  thereby  led  to 
more  carefully  examine  the  reasons  why  this  was  thus,  and  ultimately 
discovered — subsequent  to  having  experimently  protected  my  vine- 
yard and  orchard  grounds  with  Eucalypti  plants,  that  the  marvelous 
antiseptic  exudations  from  the  foliage  absolutely  defy  the  intrusion  of 
locusts  or  of  other  insect  plagues  including  the  much  dreaded  phylloxera 
vastatrix,  if  vines  are  reasonably  well  planted  and  cared  for,  it  being  im- 
possible for  locusts  or  grasshoppers  however  numerous  and  powerful  they 
may  be  in  and  around  the  immediate  neighborhood  to  approach  within 
thirty  or  forty  feet  at  least,  of  eucalypti  protected  grounds  and  live.  This 
fact  I  have  satisfactorily,  though  privately,  demonstrated  for  over  a 
decade  in  Victoria,  Australia,  and  am  fully  prepared  to  do  so  in  the 
United  States  or  elsewhere. 

In  my  researches  into  the  origin  of  insect  plagues,  I  have  discovered 
that  they  are  as  already  stated  "  nature's  scavengers"  evolved  and  sus- 
tained from  the  putrid  atmosphere  which  our  reckless  destruction  of  the 
earth's  "  forest  lungs"  has  created,  and  that  lire  eucalypti  foliage  is  un- 
questionably the  finest  and  most  perfect  atmosphere  purifiying  agent  on 
this  blight  cursed  earth.  Just  think  of  it,  Eucalyptus  glolulus  leaves 
are  sold  by  wholesale  druggists  in  Victoria,  Australia  at  one  shilling  and 
sixpence  per  pound,  i.  e.  thirty-six  cents,  for  medicinal  purposes,  and  in 
California  they  are,  as  a  rule,  ruthlessly  chopped  down  and  trodden  under 
foot! 

u.  s.  CONSUL  E.   L.   BAKER'S  REPORT. 

In  the  United  States  Consular  Eeports  for  November  and  December, 
1882,  appears  an  interesting  account  from  Consul  E.  L.  Baker  on  the 
beneficent  properties  of  eucalypti  trees  in  Buenos  Ayres,  dated  August 
23rd,  1882,  from  which  I  have  pleasure  in  quoting  as  follows  : 

THE  EUCALYPTI  TREE, — "Thinking  the  matter  might  be  of  some  interest  to  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  I  enclose  a  report  setting  forth  the  success  which  has 
attended  the  introduction  of  the  Eucalyptus  Globulus  in  the  Argentine  Kepublics 
and  somewhat  explaining  the  method  of  its  cultivation  here.  I  have  several  times 
in  my  annual  reports  referred  to  the  successful  introduction  of  the  Eucalyptus 
Globulus  (the  blue  gum  tree)  of  Australia  into  the  Argentine  Republic,  and  spok- 
en of  the  rapiditv  some  portions  of  the  pampas  heretofore  destitute  of  timber  are 
now  being  dotted  with  plantations  of  these  magnificent  trees  ;  and  from  the  ease 
with  which  they  can  be  grown,  and  the  marvellous  rapidity  of  their  growth.  I 
suggested  the  possibility  of  their  cultivation  in  the  milder  parts  of  the  United 
States.  I  observe  that  in  a  more  recent  report  to  the  Department  (No.  8,  page 
890)  accompanied  by  an  article  from  a  French  paper,  Consul  Wilson  of  Brussels 
shows  the  success  which  has  attended  their  introduction  into  France,  and  also  sug- 
gests the  acclimation  on  the  treeless  regions  of  our  southern  territories.  From 
what  I  have  observed  during  my  stay  in  this  country,  I  am  more  and  more  con- 
vinced that  the  eucalyptus  is  a  most  desirable  tree  with  which  to  timber  our  south- 
western plains  and  renew  our  rapidly  decreasing  forests ;  and  I  believe  that  a 
proper  trial  on  a  large  scale  in  those  portions  of  our  country  where  the  winters  are 
not  too  severe,  would  speedily  render  it  such  a  favorite  that  its  cultivation,  not 
only  for  ornament,  but  for  timber  would  become  general. 

"  VARIOUS  SPECIES  OF  EUCALYPTUS.— To  avoid  disappointment,  however,  in  at- 
tempting plantations  in  the  United  States,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  there 
are  many  species  of  this  tree  ;  and  that  not  all  or  even  many  of  them  would  bear 


22    "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  W6T6  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS/ 

ourclimite  except,  perhaps,  that  of  our  extreme  Suithern  States,  as  they  require 
a  tropical  or  sub-tropical  temoerature.  Others  of  them,  however,  are  quite  hardy 
ani  are  capable  of  bearing  very  severe  cold.  With  a  view  of  testing  their  cold 
bearing  qualities  Dr.  Ernest  Aberg,  a  member  of  the  Academy  of  Medical  Science, 
and  a  German  scientist  who  has  resided  many  ye  irs  in  Buenos  Avers,  has  lately 
devoted  a  large  share  of  attention  to  the  growing  of  these  trees.  He  has  now  at 
his  county-seat,  near  the  town  of  Ramos  Mejia,  on  the  Buenos  Ayres  and  West- 
ern Railroads,  upwards  of  sixty  varieties  in  more  or  less  successful  cultivation. 

"  In  a  recent  publication  on  the  subject  he  says,  that  while  the  most  of  them 
are  too  delicate  to  be  grown  in  the  province  of  Buenos  Ayres,  except  as  ornamental 
trees,  requiring  special  care,  a  few  are  not  affected  by  even  severe  cM  and  can 
bear  the  changes  of  the  most  variable  climates.  Amongst  these  he  specially 
recommends  the  following  :  Eucalyptus  alpine,  which  grows  on  the  highlands 
and  mountains  of  Victoria  at  an  altitude  of  4000  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea. 
Eucalyptus  amyydalina,  a  very  large  tree,  measuring  generally  upwards  of  80 
feet  in  height  by  2  feet  in  diameter  while  it  is  not  rare  in  Australia  to  see  speci- 
mens 200  feet  high  and  40  feet  in  diameter  at  4  feet  from  the  ground.  The  tree 
seems  to  do  well  in  Buenos  Ayres,  growing  very  rapidly,  and  producing  a  mag- 
nificent hardwood  with  beautiful  veins  running  through  it.  Its  vulgar  name 
among  the  colonists  is  the  "  narrow-leaved  peppermint  tree."  Eucalyptus  cori- 
(t,cat  a  tree  which  endures  the  intensest  cold,  forming  in  New  South  Wales  and 
Victoria  extensive  forests  at  an  altitude  of  5000  feet  above  the  sea  level.  Its  com- 
mon name  is  the  '*  mountain  white  gum  tree."  Its  leaves  are  large  and  lustrous. 
Eucalyptus  globulus,  this  tree  is  not  quite  so  hardy  as 

some  of  those  mentioned  above,  especially  when  it  is  young,  but  its  wonderful 
qualities  have  made  it  naturally  a  great  favorite  here,  and  it  is  now  to  be  seen 
growing  sometimes  on  large  plantations  in  all  this  part  of  the  province  of  Buenos 
Ayrep,  its  very  rapid  growth  in  two  or  three  years  producing  the  same  effect  which 
other  trees  would  hardly  produce  in  fifteen  years.  Tnis  is  the  variety  of  Eucalyp- 
tus of  all  others  most  recommended  for  acclimation  in  the  United  States.  Tne 
Euealyptus  globulus  grows  with  a  rapidity  which  is  surprising  ....  as  an 
example  of  their  increase  it  may  be  stated  that  in  Hyeres  seeds  planted  in  1857 
had  in  1865  reached  the  height  of  58  feet.  In  Toulon  the  plant  grows  to  24  feet  in 
two  years.  In  1863,  there  were  trees  in  Algiers  of  three  years  growth  which  had 
attained  a  height  of  30  to  35  feet,  and  generally  in  that  country  they  grow  at  the 
rate  of  about  ten  feet  each  season . 

"  MEDICINAL  VIRTUES  OF  THE  TREE.— I  have  said  this  much  of  the  Eucalyptus 
as  a  forest  or  shade  tree  which  has  already  become  a  great  favorite  here,  and 
which,  I  believe,  would  be  found  to  give  equally  satisfactory  results  in  certain 
parts  of  the  United  States.  I  m  iv  add  that  it  is  considered  here  to  be  a  very 
healthful  tree.  The  pungency  of  its  leaves  is  such  that  it  is  never  molested  by 
insects,  and  1  believe  it  is  the  only  tree,  grown,  here  ivhich  the  locusts  (the  great 
pest  of  the  Argentine  Republic)  will  not  attack.  It  has  the  reputation  of  being 
an  excellent  destroyer  or  absorbent  of  malaria.  It  is  stated  that  in  Australia 
there  are  no  marsh  fevers  where  large  forests  of  the  Eucalyptus  exist11  (perfectly 
true)  "  and  I  hear  they  have  been  planted  in  the  Pontine  in  trshes  near  tl:e  city  of 
Rome  with  excellent  effects.  In  regard  to  its  medical  virtues.  Professor  Bently 
published  a  pamphlet  in  London  in  1874  in  which  he  fully  confirmed  all  that  has 
been  claimed  for  the  tree,  calling  it  "THE  FEVER  DESTROYING  TREE,"  and  citing 
many  instances  to  prove  it.  Here  in  Buenos  Ayres  they  bruise  the  leaves  and 
bind  them  to  the  forehead  for  nervous  headache,  and  I  am  told  that  the  leaves  are 
a  special  abhorrence  to  such  insects  as  prey  upon  fruits  and  fruit  trees  against 
whose  visitations  they  furnish  protection  by  being  scattered  thickly  on  the 
ground  underneath." 

The  above  extract  which  I  have  copied  since  my  arrival  in  San  Francisco, 
speaks  for  itself  and,  in  my  opinion,  should  be  read  from  every  church 
pulpit  and  school  desk  in  America  until  the  instructive  lesson  it  conveys  be 
deeply  burned  into  every  one's  mind  throughout  the  land.  Consul  Baker's 
admirable  report  had  evidently  been  overlooked  and  became  in  consequence 


THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS.  "    23 

"a  dead  letter"  to  those  most  concerned,  viz.  vineyardists,  orchardists  and 
agriculturists,  etc.  Shortly  after  my  arrival  in  San  Francisco  I  learned 
from  D.  Heoshaw,  Ward  Esq.,  of  308  California  Street,  general  manager 
•of  the  Natoma  (1500  acre)  vineyard,  that  within  two  months  in  1891  the 
company  he  represents  suffered  to  the  extent  of  $65,000  from  a  grasshop- 
per invasion;  we  shall  therefore  be  correct  in  surmising  that  all  other  vine- 
yards and  orchards  within  the  infested  area,  suffered  in  like  manner,  there, 
by  possibly  aggregating  a  loss  amounting  to  sundry  million  dollars 'in  this 
•State  alone  which  could  have  been  saved  had  said  report  been  made  known 
and  acted  on. 

The  testimony  of  Australia's  premier  authority — Baron  Ferdinand  von 
Mueller,  K.  C.  B.  M.  D.,  F.  ft.  S.—  on  the  nature  and  properties  of  Eu- 
calypti, as  expressed  in  the  following  extract  from  a  letter  dated 
December  7th,  1883,  is  now  of  special  interest  : 

"  The  European  and  American  mails,  dear  Mr.  McLean,  kept  me  incessantly 
engaged  till  Tuesday  night,  and  since  then  I  have  been  harassed  with  official  work* 
hence  I  can  only  now  ac  a  late  night  hour  attend  to  your  inquiries.  .  .  .' 
What  the  bottoms  of  temporarily  dry  lakes  would  generate  are  Bacteria  in  billions 
sometimes  as  the  carriers  of  epidemic  diseases.  .  .  If  therefore  yon r  wise 
suggestion  could  be  adopted  to  let  the  water  of  the  Avoca  into  the  Lake  Tyrrell 
(an  immense  waterless  basin  in  an  arid  district)  not  only  would  ample  drinking 
water  be  gained  but  the  air  be  cooled  far  around  and  the  bacteria  be  drowned. 

"  As  regards  planting  for  sanitary  purposes,  nothing  can  be  more  valuable 
than  Eucalyptus,  their  odorous  foliage  originate  ozone  and  peroxyde  of  hydrogen 
as  most  powerful  destroyers  of  miasmatta.  The  little  hook  transmitted  herewith 
(a  treatise  on  Eucalypti]  for  your  kind  acceptance  may  interest  you  as  bearing  on 
•questions  in  which  you  have  shown  such  a  deep  interest." 

"With  regardful  remembrances,  yours 

(signed)    FEED.  VON  MUELLER." 

FURTHER   TESTIMONY 

From  the  Bendigo  Advertiser  (Australia)  of  October  23rd,  1890  : — 

GUM  TREES  AND  DRAINAGE.— "  The  value  of  eucalyptus  trees  for  draining 
«wampy  land  is  illustrated  by  the  following  paragraph  from  the  8t.  James  Gazette: 
'*  For  years  past  the  Trefontance  Convent  at  Rome  had  become  positively  unin- 
habitable owing  to  the  malaria  which  attacked — in  many  instances  with  fatal  re- 
sults— its  inmates.  Senator  Torelli  presented  a  bill  in  Parliament  proposing  that 
the  estate  annexed  to  the  convent  should  be  planted  with  eucalyptus  as  an  experi- 
ment against  malaria,  The  bill  was  passed,  and  the  Trappist  monks  planted 
thousands  of  eucalyptus  plants  of  all  species  on  the  estate.  But  still  the  malaria 
ravaged,  and  several  monks  suffered  severely.  But  it  was  remarked  that  it  was 
only  the  monks  who  had  their  cells  looking  on  the  central  cloister  who  fell  victims 
to  the  malaria.  This  suggested  the  idea  of  planting  four  eucalyptus  trees  at  the 
four  corners  of  the  cloister.  The  plants,  sheltered  from  the  winds,  soon  grew  to  a 
great  height.  The  immediate  result  was  the  complete  draining  of  the  soil  in  the 
cloister,  and  the  disappearance  of  malaria  fever  from  the  convent." 

That  eucalypti  is  unquestionably  the  most  powerful  antiseptic  tree  on 
earth  cannot  now  for  a  moment  be  seriously  doubted,  and  when  we  couple 
its  many  additional  virtues  including  its  rapid  growth,  durability  and 
beauty  of  texture  for  furniture  and  general  building  purposes — (as  will 
be  amply  shown  by  the  New  South  Wales  Government  at  the  Chicago 
World's  Fair) — it  is,  in  my  opinion,  justly  destined  to  play  a  leading  part 
in  forest  restoration  all  over  this  planet.  The  almost  limitless  medicinal 
properties  which  permeate  its  evergreen  "odorous  foliage"  are  being 


24          "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  W6T6  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS. 

rapidly  demonstrated  to  the  discomfiture  of  all  disease  breeding  germs. 
May  we  not  therefore  hope  that  we  have  found  in  the  leaves  of  this  bene- 
ficent tree  a  real  panacea  "  for  the  healing  of  the  nations,"  which  should 
be  liberally  planted  under  the  very  best  local  supervision  through  and 
around  every  populous  centre  where  sound  health  is  desirable  ?  and  in 
order  to  encourage  their  most  pleasing  growth,  an  annual  prize  might  be 
awarded  for  the  best  kept  plot  of  trees  entrusted  to  the  care  of  adjacent 
residents,  on  a  public  "  arbor  day."  Such  an  arrangement  would  quickly 
transform  all  malaria  breeding  cities  of  the  Chicago  type  into  health- 
ful retreats.  If  the  streets  were  ornamented  with  eucalyptus  fosifolia  and 
eucalyptus  globulous  (or  a  more  hardy  sort  such  as  eucalyptus  amagdalina) 
planted  alternately,  a  most  pleasing  result  would  follow,  as  the  foxifolia 
evolves  a  profusion  of  beautiful  purple  flowers. 

The  whirlgig  of  excitements  connected  with  huge  business  concerns 
throughout  the  United  States  and  elsewhere,  seems  to  have  deadened  every 
other  consideration,  and  therefore  doubtless  the  scribbler  of  this  treatise 
will  be  considered  a  silly  alarmist.  There  is,  however,  one  thing  certain, 
namely,  that  ere  long  the  great  ones  of  the  earth  will  be  compelled 
to  earnestly  turn  their  attention  to  the  terrible  results  now 
hourly  increasing  from  outraged  nature  which  seriously  threaten  to 
depopulate  the  apparently  fairest  parts  of  this  planet.  As  shown  by 
Professor  Ellis — we,  for  over  five  thousand  seven  hundred  years,  accord- 
ing to  the  Mosaic  record  of  time  —had  been  ignorantly  slaughtering  the 
earth's  forest  lungs,  before  Dr.  Priestly,  in  his  scientific  researches  dis- 
covered in  them  the  hidden  atmospheric  regulating  treasures,  yet  notwith. 
standing  his  and  others  admonitions;  since  then  we  have  continued  the 
devilish  work  in  a  more  vicious  manner.  Australia  cow  suffers  immensely 
from  consequent  droughts,  floods,  fires  and  various  insect-plagues,  caus- 
ing universal  depression  amongst  pastoralists,  miners,  agriculturists  and 
artisans,  and  hence  the  existing  wholesale  insolvency  through  the  colonies 
extending  to  the  leading  banking  corporations — the  latest  being  one  of 
the  most  gigantic  of  those  institutions,  about  which  the  following  dispatch 
from  the  S.  F.  Examiner  of  April  13th,  1893,  speaks: — 

A  BIG  BANK  FAILURE. 

LONDON,  April  12.— The  English,  Scottish  and  Australian  Chartered  Bank  has 
failed  with  liabilities  amounting,  it  is  said,  to  £8,000,000  or  $40,000,000.  No  esti- 
mate of  the  assets  has  yet  been  made,  but  they  are  supposed  to  be  large.  The  bank 
was  incorporated  by  royal  charter  in  1852,  and  claimed  to  have  a  paid  up  capital 
of  £900,000,  and  a  reserve  fund  of  £310,000.  The  suspended  bank  has  its  main 
branches  at  Sydney,  Adelaide,  Brisbane  and  Melbourne  and  at  various  lesser  points 
in  the  colonies  of  New  South  Wales,  Victoria  and  South  Australia.  It,  transacted 
a  banking  and  exchange  business  between  Great  Britain  and  the  Australian 
colonies,  and  had  large  deposits.  The  failure  has  added  to  the  anxiety  and  con- 
sternation which  recent  failures  of  financial  institutions,  with  Australian  connec- 
tions, have  caused.  The  only  reason  given  for  the  failure  is  that  there  has  been, 
for  several  weeks,  a  steadily  increasing  withdrawals  of  deposits. 

ADDITIONAL,  EVIDENCE   OF     RUINED    DEFORESTED     SOIL. 

By  the  8.  F.  Chronicle  of  April  16th,  1893,  we  learn  that  the  Pacific 
Mail  Steamship  China  arrived  on  the  preceding  day,  bringing  Hong  Kong 
news  to  March  18th  and  Yokohama  advices  to  March  25th,  and  that  the 
news  consists  mainly  of  disasters  by  land  and  sea;  how  that  the  people 
are  selling  their  children  to  get  money  for  wheat,  owing  to  the  existence 
of  a  widespread  famine  in  Mongolia  and  in  Shansi,  declaring  that  the 


"  THE  LEAVBS  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THB  NATIONS."    25 

outlook  is  even  worse  than  in  the  memorable  year  that  followed  the  big 
overflow  of  the  Yellow  river — "  For  150  miles  not  so  much  as  a  single 
grain  of  wheat  has  been  reaped  by  the  inhabitants,  so  that  after  they  had 
consumed  their  reserves  nothing  more  could  be  done  than  to  lie  down 
and  die."  Here  we  have  unmistakable  evidence  of  ruined  soil  in  an 
almost  treeless  portion  of  a  vast  Empire,  soil  that  has  been  cropped  for 
centuries  to  feed  teeming  multitudes  minus  any  recuperating  rest,  and, 
as  stated  by  M.  Marchand  in  his  work  I  have  already  quoted  : — "  With 
the  ruin  of  the  soil  begins  the  ruin  of  the  people.  The  more  unhappy 
they  are,  the  more  selfish  do  they  become."  And  this  is  how  Marchand's 
affirmation  is  borne  out  in  this  case.  The  Chronicle's  correspondent 
makes  reference  to  the  miserable  appearance  of  the  famine  cursed  people, 
as  also  to  the  heartless  treatment  they  are  being  subjected  to  from  their 
more  wealthy  brethren  in  the  following  manner  : — 

"They  reminded  one  on  looking  at  them  like  so  many  skeletons,  with  faces 
as  sharp  and  pointed  as  the  eagle.  The  rich  in  the  famine  districts  stayed  at 
home,  of  course,  but  they  had  to  economize  their  scanty  stocks  of  oil  and  wheat, 
while  those  either  too  old  or  poor  to  leave  the  country  were  fortunate  if  they  could 
find  herbs  and  roots  of  trees  and  plants  to  satisfy  the  cravings  of  starvation.  He 
must  have  had  a  heart  of  iron  not  to  have  wept  tears  whenever  his  eyes  rested  on 
the  hundreds  of  bodies  lying  on  the  roads  and  by-patns,  either  in  a  dying  condition 
or  stiff  and  lifeless.  And  the  bitter  cold  !  Which  of  these  two  cruel  enemies  took 
away  the  most — cold  or  hunger  ?  The  crafty  grain  dealers  of  Shansi  made  enor- 
mous profits  out  of  the  poor  sufferers,  some  of  whom,  having  no  money  to  buy  the 
precious  cereals,  sold  or  gave  in  exchange  their  children  in  barter.  For  instance, 
a  child  of  6  was  worth  many  hundred  cash,  and  marriageable  girls  were  bartered 
in  exchange  for  a  camel's  load  of  wheat  or  400  catties. 

"  A  correspondent  from  North  Hhansi  says  that  Dr.  Stuart  reports  that  near 
Ningwu  Hsien  he  met  seventeen  loads  of  young  women  and  girls  on  the  way  to- 
ward the  south  to  be  sold.  Each  load  had  an  average  of  t went v  persons,  all  from 
one  district.  The  people  of  the  Kueihua  Hsien  villages  say  that  out  of  every  three 
persons  two  will  die  before  the  end  of  the  second  month  of  next  year.  This  year 
the  oat  and  wheat  crops  were  practically  a  failure,  and  the  millet  crop  was  not 
more  than  one-half  as  largo  as  usual." 

The  Chronicle  also  alludes  to  fearfully  destructive  fires  and  snow 
storms  in  Japan  and  in  Canton  causing  great  loss  of  life.  200  persons 
perished  in  Canton — crushed  to  death  by  the  immense  weight  of  snow 
falling  on  their  dwellings  and  in  the  streets.  "Snow  was  a  thing  un- 
heard of  in  Canton,"  adds  the  writer,  etc.  Surely  "  grievous  times"  are 
now  upon  us  ! 

A    DEFORESTATION. — LESSON    FROM    RUSSIA. 

"  The  first  article  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  for  January  last  is  entitled 
"The  Penury  of  Russia."  A  more  dreary  and  unrelieved  picture  of  blank 
desolation  has  hardly  ever  been  printed."  (Review  of  Reviews,  March,  '93). 

FORESTS  AND  EAINFALL.— Without  entering  into  details,  here  is  one  startling 
statement  made  by  the  reviewer.  He  says  that  owing  to  the  destruction  of  the 
forests  the  rivers  are  drying  up,  and  the  eastern  part  of  the  country  is  literally 
being  sanded  up  :  "  The  ruthless  forest  destruction  which  has  been  going  on  for 
a  long  time  has  had  a  eerious  effect  in  reducing  the  average  rainfall.  The  belts  of 
wood  attracted  and  held  the  moisture,  which  was  slowly  distributed  for^the  benefit 
of  agriculture;  now,  in  vast  regions,  as,  for  instance,  on  the  black  soil,  there  is 
hardly  a  tree  to  be  seen,  and  the  consequence  is  that  the  underground  rivulets 
which  nourished  the  soil  have  disappeared.  The  forests  also  broke  the  force  of 
the  fierce  east  desert  winds.  Now  these  winds,  piercingly  cold  in  winter  and 


26          "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  IVCre  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS. 


ecorchingly  hot  in  summer,  burst  with  full  fury  on  the  great  plains.  In  summer 
their  blasts  are  capable  of  withering  the  corn  in  a  few  days  and  with  them  come 
sand  storms,  which  turn  fertile  land  into  permanent  deserts.  The  unfortunate 
experience  of  Central  Asia,  which  once  was  a  garden  of  fertility  and  now  is  a  des- 
ert peopled  by  nomads  only,  are  repeating  themselves. 

DRIFT  SAND  FROM  THE  DESERT.—  "In  the  province  of  Astrachan  an  area  of  800 
square  miles  is  covered  by  drift  sand  ;  in  that  of  Strawropol  whole  villages  have 
disappeared,  and  in  1885  soldiers  had  to  be  summoned  to  clear  the  sand  from  the 
houses.  In  the  produce  of  Tauris  the  sand  now  covers  150,000  des<jaetines 
(1.00925  hect);  the  same  disastrous  effects  took  place  in  the  north,  where,  after 
the  destruction  of  the  forests  in  the  provinces  of  Samara,  Woronesh  and  Tchern- 
igow,  hundreds  of  S'^nd  hills  arose,  which  gradually  covered  the  fertile  land.  A 
further  consequence  is  that  the  rivers  become  shallower.  In  winter  there  is  noth- 
ing to  hold  the  snow,  which  is  blown  together  into  large  heaps;  these  with  the 
thaw  dissolve  into  temporary  torrents,  washing  away  acres  of  tillage,  and  carrying 
off  all  moisture  before  it  has  had  time  to  soak  into  the  soil. 

THE  DRYING  UP  OF  THE  RIVERS.—  "The  river  beds  cannot  contain  all  this 
water,  and  inundations  occur  ;  but  when  it  has  swept  down  there  is  no  further 
supply.  The  Woronesh,  on  which  Peter  the  Great  built  his  first  ships,  is  now  a 
mere  rivulet;  the  Worskla,  which  fifteen  years  ago  was  a  beautiful  river,  sur- 
rounded by  woods  and  pastures,  has  absolutely  disappeared  ;  the  Oka  has  become 
so  shallow  chat  barges  coming  from  Nishegorod  were  stranded  upon  its  sands.  At 
Dorogobush  the  Dnjepr  can  be  crossed  by  carriages;  on  the  Dnjepr  the  navigation 
had  to  be  stopped,  as  its  depth  was  reduced  to  2  or  3  feet;  0nd  even  on  the  Volga 
steam  navigation  is  interrupted  in  many  parts,  the  river  not  being  able  to  carry 
away  the  sandbanks;  it  is  calculated  that  the  volume  of  its  water  has  decreased  by 
24,000,000  cubic  meters.  It  is  evident  that  even  the  most  costly  works  for  open- 
ing the  channels  will  be  of  little  avail;  the  cause  lies  in  the  devastation  of  the  for- 
ests; the  law  by  which  the  government  interdicted  the  ruthless  fall  of  timber  has 
come  too  late,  and  replanting  is  slow  work,  although  it  is  the  only  remedy  against 
the  evil." 

The  following  reliable  outline  —  with  copies  of  photos  —  of  an  American 
mischief  creating  Sahara,  appeared  in  the  San  Francisco  Chronicle  of 
April  9,  1893.  The  writer,  a  Mr.  Frederick  I.  Monsen,  recently  returned 
to  San  Francisco  after  a  three  months  exploration  tour  through  "  Mojave 
Desert  and  Death  Valley,"  about  which  he  now  writes:  — 

"Death  Valley  is  known  as  the  region  of  lowest  depression  in  the  world,  besides 
claiming  the  flattering  appellation  of  being  the  hottest  place  on  earth.  It  is  430 
feet  below  the  level  or  the  sea.  The  valley  is  seventy-  five  miles  long  and  from  eight 
to  fifteen  miles  wide."  (A  splendid  breeding  field  for  insect  plagues  and  their  broad- 
cast distributing  whirlwinds.)  On  the  ea^t  the  valley  is  bounded  by  the  Funeral 
mountains,  which  attain  an  elevation  of  from  6000  to  8000  feet,  and  on  west  it  is  in- 
closed by  the  Panarnint  rage,  which  reaches  a  height  of  from  8000  to  10.000  feet. 
"The  valley  is  an  independent  drainage  basin,  and  the  eastern  part  is  filled  with 
a  wash  of  rock  and  gravel,  the  result  of  cloudbursts.  Immense  fields  of  borax  and 
soda  cover  a  large  section  of  country  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  valley,  and  salt 
marshes  of  the  almost  pure  chloride  extend  over  a  vast  area  of  land.  From  a  spring 
in  Furnace  creek  wash,  the  entrance  to  this  arid  country,  the  Pacific  Coast  Borax 
Company  cultivates  about  thirty  acres  of  land  in  alfalfa,  the  only  evidence  of  civili- 
z.itiqn  in  the  entire  district.  Were  it  not  for  this  ranch  it  would  be  well  nigh  im- 
possible to  make  the  trip  across  the  valley,  as  by  no  other  means  could  feed  for  the 
horses  be  obtained.  The  nearest  accessible  point  to  Death  Valley  is  Daggett,  a 
small  station  on  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  Railway.  It  is  105  miles  distance  from 
this  point  to  the  valley,  and  requires  a  journey  of  seven  days  to  cover  the  ground. 
On  the  road  there  aie  but  three  springs,  two  of  which  are  sixty  miles  apart.  Travel- 
ers are,  therefore,  compelled  to  carry  water  for  themselves  and  beasts,  and  when 
it  is  added  that  one  has  an  inordinate  thirst  on  the  desert  the  burden  can  be  con- 
sidered no  light  one.  A  man  will  drink  three  gallons  of  water  a  day  and  the 


"  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS."    27 

animals  twice  as  much  as  customary.  But  little  good  water  is  found,  as  most  of  the 
water  holes  or  springs  are  charged  with  alum,  arsenic  or  borax.  On  the  follow- 
ing day  after  my  arrival  at  Daggett,  I  left,  equipped  with  an  outfit  consisting 
of  buckboards,  mules  and  a  guide.  We  crossed  what  is  known  as  the  link 
of  the  Mojave  river  and  journeyed  for  five  days  over  a  region  destitute  of 
vegetation  or  animal  life,  with  the  exception  of  a  growth  here  and  theie  of  dwarfed 
cacti.  The  oppressiveness  of  this  desolation  and  extreme  solitude  must  be  ex- 
perienced to  be  understood.  Nameless  graves  of  poor  unfortunates  who  attempted 
to  cross  the  desert  during  its  heated  term  are  the  only  break  in  this  dreary  monot- 
ony, and  every  year  new  mounds  of  earth,  marked  only  with  a  stick  or  a  stone, 
show  the  spot  where  some  adventurous  prospector  perished  from  thirst  and  the  ex- 
cessive heat  and  was  buried  by  strangers. 

"Desert  travel  during  the  summer  months  is  attended  with  extreme  danger,  and 
can  only  be  accomplished  by  traveling  at  night  and  camping  during  the  heat  of  the 
day  at  some  water  hole  or  small  oasis.  If  an  accident  had  occured  to  our  wagon  or 
mules  on  the  desert  it  would  have  been  a  very  serious  proposition  as  we  were  miles 
from  any  human  habitation  and  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  have  secured 
other  animals  or  repair  a  break.  On  the  fifth  day  out  we  reached  Armargosa,  the 
abandoned  borax  works  of  the  Pacific  Coast  Borax  Company,  and  here  rested  for  a 
few  days.  It  is  sixty- two  miles  from  this  place  to  Death  Valley  and  we  had  to  carry 
water  for  this  entire  distance.  We  occupied  two  days  in  this  last  stretch  and  we 
travelled  the  entire  route  over  a  bed  of  rock  and  gravel,  accumulated  by  the  action 
of  cloudbursts. 

"The  entrance  to  the  valley  is  through  a  canyon  called  Furnace-creek  wash.  We 
arrived  here  just  before  dusk  and  at  an  elevation  of  5000  feet  we  obtained  the  first 
view  of  this  historical  valley.  Far  toward  the  west  the  Paniment  mountains  stood, 
forming  the  wall  of  that  side  of  the  valley.  Just  behind  these  western  ridges  was 
sinking  the  ruddy  sun,  bathing  tnis  desolate  production  of  God's  hand  (?)  in  a  purple- 
tinted  light.  Moment  by  moment  the  shadows  crept  over  this  scene  of  desolation. 
No  sound  from  the  twittering  lark  or  the  wild  canary  forewarned  us  of  the  approach- 
ing night.  All  was  as  still  as  the  midnight  hour.  We  prepared  our  camp,  ex- 
changing hardly  a  word  and  glad  for  the  moment  when  we  would  become  oblivious 
to  these  ghostly  surroundirgs.  The  next  morning  we  arrived  at  the  entrance  or 
level  of  Death  Valley  and  from  this  point  saw  for  the  first  time  a  sand  storm.  In- 
cidentally I  may  remark  that  these  storms  during  the  summer  months  are  very 
frequent.  When  we  saw  it  the  northern  part  of  the  valley  was  obscured  in  a  brown- 
ish-colored cloud,  which  gradually  thinned  out  until  it  crossed  the  entire  valley. 
Never  at  any  moment  did  it  entirely  obscure  the  sun,  which  looked  like  a  mere 
ghost  of  itself.  The  cloud  moved  with  great  velocity  in  our  direction  and  soon  ad- 
vance runners  or  hot  pulls  of  wind  reached  us.  On  arriving  at  the  end  of  Furnace- 
creek  wash  we  saw  the  sand  storm  in  the  northern  part  of  the  valley.  This  was 
shortlj  after  sunrise.  The  entire  horizon  and  sky  was  obscured  by  the  sand  and 
gravel,  which  were  buoyed  in  an  atmosphere  oppressively  hot  and  stifling. 

"  Soon  we  were  enveloped  by  a  dense  cloud  of  sand,  and  occasionally  as  a 
stronger  puff  of  wind  came  gravel  and  even  small  rocks  were  hurled  into  our  faces. 
We  covered  our  heads  with  blankets,  and  the  mules  instinctively  turned  their  tails 
to  the  wind.  With  all  these  precautions  we  did  not  escape,  for  my  guide's  face 
and  my  own  became  badly  bruised  and  lacerated.  In  our  exposed  position  we  ex- 
perienced all  the  fury  of  this  desert  simoon,  and  as  the  winds  traveled  across  the 
alkali  sink  they  increased  in  heat  to  such  an  extent  that  breathing  became  a 
matter  of  difficulty.  This  storm  lasted  two  days,  and  in  all  this  time  it  was  im- 
possible to  move  from  our  position.  We  had  to  camp  here  for  that  period,  being 
unable  to  light  any  fires  or  prepare  meats.  Most  of  this  time  we  were  covered 
with  blankets  and  literally  starved.  I  never  want  to  undergo  that  ordeal  again. 
This  was  in  the  fall.  The  puffs  of  wind  were  so  intensely  hot  and  suffocating  that 
they  can  be  likened  to  blasts  from  a  furnace,  and  seemed  to  draw  the  very  breath 
from  our  bodies.  The  storm  piled  the  sand  around  our  w»»gon  and  covered  every- 
thing. Occasionally  looking  down  into  the  valley,  we  could  see  a  large  sand  augur 
or  spout  waltzing  hither  and  thither  over  the  country,  carrying  the  sand  and 
alkali  dust  high  into  the  air.  Though  this  storm  was  exceedingly  severe  to  a  nov- 
ice like  myself,  it  is  incomparable  to  the  ones  that  sweep  over  this  country  in  mid- 


28    "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOB  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS." 

die  summer.  In  July  or  August,  with  the  thermometer  registering  from  130  to  137 
degrees  in  the  shade,  it  would  be  impossible  for  any  living  creature  to  exist  in  it 
even  for  an  hour." 

If  "Death  valley"  was  flooded  from  the  sea  or  elsewhere,  and  surrounding 
mountains  properly  clothed  with  our  evergreen  eucalypti,  one  very  great 
factor  for  good  to  thousands  of  struggling  settlers  and  others  far  and 
wide  would  most  assuredly  ere  long  follow,  as  the  billions  of  disease 
breeding  germs  now  annually  evolved  in  said  valley  and  widely  scattered 
broadcast  over  land  and  sea  by  whirlwinds,  would  be  drowned  and 
the  surrounding  air  delightfully  cooled,  besides  considerably  lessen  the 
existing  destructive  storm  creating  cause.  Some  such  extreme  measures 
must  shortly  be  taken  to  transform  American  and  other  deserts  from 
their  present  dangerous  condition,  if  we  really  wish  to  abate  the  now 
hourly  increasing  cyclonic  and  torrental  devastations  all  over  the  earth,  for 
notwithstanding  our  long  practical  denials  that  we  are  our  brothers' 
keepers,  the  immutable  laws  of  nature — which  are  the  laws  of  Grod — 
teach  a  very  different  tale.  The  question  has  often  been  and  is  now 
asked:  "  Why  is  it  that  Europe  should  have  been  so  severely  afflicted 
by  the  cholera  and  other  disease  scourges  from  Asia  ?"  And  all  sorts  of 
surmises  have  been  ventured  on  regarding  the  transmitting  agency  of 
said  scourges — just  as  we  now  ponder  anent  the  impending  cholera  epi- 
demic from  Europe  to  the  United  States  and  Australia — quite  oblivious 
to  the  fact  that  we  commenced  our  forest-lung  destroying  work  in  Asia, 
and  that  the  consequent  "  oriental  afreets"  or  whirlwind  sand-pillars  of 
the  desert,  have  been  and  now  are  the  real  transmitting  agents  which 
charge  the  "  ariel  reservoirs"  with  myriads  of  disease  germs  "seeking 
whomsoere  they  may  devour,"  often  flooding  ships  in  mid-ocean. 

IMMENSE  VALUE   OF  THE  AMERICAN   GRAPE   GROWING   INDUSTRY. 

(From  Harper's  Weekly,  July  18th,  1891.) 

A  special  investigation  shows  that  in  the  several  grape  growing  districts 
in  the  United  States  401,261  acres  were  set  apart  for  the  industry,  307.575 
acres  in  bearing  producing  573,139  tons  of  grapes,  and  240,450  tons  were 
used  in  producing  wine,  making  24,306,905  gallons,  41,165  tons  for  raisins, 
making  1,372,195  boxes  of  twenty  pounds  each,  and  23,252  tons  for  dried 
grapes  and  purposes  other  than  table  fruit.  The  total  value  of  plant  used 
in  the  industry,  1889,  is  given  as  $155,661,  150;  at  the  time  of  taking  the 
returns  200,780  persons  were  employed. 

OTHER    FRUITS. 

(From  the  San  Francisco  Examiner  of  March  21th,  1892.) 
'As  the  result  of  a  careful  compilation  of  information  from  the  most  reliable 
sources,  the  growers  themselves,  the  Census  office  has  issued  some  interesting 
figures  upon  the  production  of  oranges,  lemons,  figs,  almonds,  cocoanuts  and  other 
semi-tropical  fruits  and  nuts  in  the  United  States.  Numbers  of  acres  of  bearing 
and  non-bearing  trees  arid  plants,  271,428.10;  number  of  bearing  trees  and  plants, 
28,101,036;  number  of  non-bearing  trees  and  plants,  14,205,323;  value  of  product 
for  year  1889,  $14,116,226  59;  estimated  number  of  acres  suitable  for  planting 
tropical  fruits  and  nuts,  24,710,879. 

The  comparison  between  California  and  Florida  in  relation  to  fruit  trees  is  in- 
teresting. In  this  State  there  are  78,616.47  acres  devoted  to  bearing  and  non-bear- 
ing trees.  Florida  has  168,754  63.  California  has  2,652,021  bearing  trees  or 
plants,  while  Florida  boasts  of  25,317,536.  California  has  4,247,789  non-bearing 

tt«£)Aa   n*t/-1     T?l^.«I^rt    T~ « _    ri   orvrv  *?/»  4          **\    i  •  i*  •        i  c\r\    ,>,-,—  -• 


THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS."      29 

LOCUST  PLAGUES  IN  ALGERIA. 

It  is  said  that  as  a  result  of  early  forest  destruction  Mahomet  was 
inspired  to  pen  the  following  "  fable"  : — 

t "  We  are  the  army  of  the  great  God,"  quoth  the  locusts.  "  We  produce  ninety- 
nine  eggs  each.  If  the  hundred  were  comoleted  we  should  consume  the  whole 
earth  and  all  that  is  in  it." 

And  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  the  earliest  recorded  invasion  in  Europe 
of  these  insects,  A.  D.  591,  was  from  Africa,  the  northern  shores  of  which 
has  been  rendered  bare  and  sterile  by  centuries  of  forest  destruction. 
The  Scientific  American  of  July  25th,  1891  furnished  the  following  inter- 
esting particulars  regarding  recent  terrible  results  in  and  around  Algeria: 

"  During  the  past  three  or  four  years  the  French  Government  has  been  making 
strenuous  exertions  to  beat  down  the  armies  of  locusts  coming  from  the  South  on 
the  _  fertile  lands  of  Algeria,  and  during  the  present  year  they  are  also  having  a 
similar  fight  with  these  pests  on  the  northern  borders  of  Lunis.  The  cheap  Arab 
labor  obtainable  for  this  purpose  has  made  it  possible  to  employ  in  the  work  a 
veritable  army  of  men,  the  Government  ordering  the  tribes  to  form  encampments 
along  the  line  on  which  it  is  proposed  to  fight  the  oncoming  army  of  locusts  and  in 
this  way  the  crops  have  been  protected  from  the  ravages  of  this  plague,  although 
no  permanent  relief  has  been,  obtained." 

And  the  following;  from  "  Land  and  Water"  of  August  8th,  1891,  still 
further  testifies  to  the  fearful  scourge  in  that  country  : 

"  The  attention  of  the  Board  of  Agriculture  has  been  drawn  by  the  Foreign 
Office  toa  report  from  her  Majesty's  acting  charge  d'  affairs  at  Tangier,  (Algeria)  re- 
specting the  severe  effects  of  the  visitation  of  locusts  on  the  crops  in  Morocco.  From 
this  report  it  appears  that  the  damage  done  by  these  insects  in  the  chief  grain  grow- 
ing districts  has  been  very  considerable,  the  latter  crops  having  suffered  to  a  very 
large  extent.  In  the  Tangier  district  and  in  the  northern  province  the  crops  have 
been  but  little  affected  owing  to  the  late  arrival  of  the  locusts,  but  the  injury  be- 
came more  extensive  towards  the  south.  Thus  at  Rabat  and  Daralbaida  half  the 
wheat  crop  has  been  destroyed.  At  Mazigan  the  maize  and  pea  crops  are  com- 
plete failures,  while  at  Mogador  there  is  a  general  scarcity  of  grain.  Olive  and 
almond  trees  have  suffered  extensively  in  most  districts,  oil  being  only  sufficient  for 
local  consumption.  From  all  parts  of  the  country  fruit  and  vegetables  are  re- 
ported to  be  entirely  destroyed.  In  addition  to  the  loss  of  tue  crops  of  grain,  fruit 
and  vegetables,  a  serious  feature  is  indicated  in  the  want  of  pasturage,  which  has 
produced  a  mortality  amongst  the  cattle,  and  a  great  fall  in  their  price,  owing  to 
the  anxiety  of  the  people  to  sell  animals  they  are  unable  to  feed." 

Whether  or  not  the  famous  Mahomet  "  fable"  anent  the  destructive 
power  of  locusts  has  any  foundation  in  fact,  the  following  from  the 
New  York  Herald  of  May  18th,  1891,  unmistakably  denotes  their  apparent- 
ly revengeful  disposition : — 

KILLED     BY     LOCUSTS. 

"  The  horrible  death  that  befell  a  French  savant,  M.  Kunckel  Herculass,  the 
president  of  the  Ethnological  Society,  who  was  employed  on  the  Government 
mission  investigating  the  locust  plague  in  this  province,  has  met  with  a  horrible 
death.  While  examining  a  deposit  of  locust  eggs  at  the  village  of  Sidiral, 
(Algeria)  he  was  overcome  with  fatigue  and  the  heat  and  fell  asleep  on  the  ground. 
While  sleeping  he  was  attacked  by  a  swarm  of  locusts.  On  awakening  he  struggled 
desperately  to  escape  from  the  living  flood.  He  set  fire  to  the  insect  laden  bushes* 
near  him,  but  all  his  efforts  proved  ineffectual,  and  when  finally  the  locusts  left  the 
spot  his  corpse  was  found.  His  hair,  beard  and  neck  had  been  entirely  devoured. 
M.  Herculass  was  a  member  of  the  French  Academy  and  author  of  several 
valuable  works  on  insects."— (Asmoke  stimulates  locusts). 


30    <f  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  W6T6  FOB  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS. " 

"On  the  13th  of  May  last,"  wrote  a  lady  contributor  to  the  Contemporary 
Review  for  June,  1891: — "I  was  traveling  with  my  husband  through  Eistern 
Algeria.  At  six  o'clock  on  a  lovely  summer's  morning  and  there,  before  us  in  the 
transparent  air,  looking  like  a  summer  snow  storm,  we  saw  approaching  a  dancing 
cloud  of  winged  particles.  It  was  the  advance  guard  of  the  dreaded  locust  army 
.  .  .  The  whole  of  this  wide  expanse— including  the  three  departments  of  Oran , 
Algiers  and  Constantine,  which  composes  the  colony  stretching  from  Morocco  on 
the  west  to  Tunisia  on  the  east,  the  city  of  Algiers  standing  about  halfway  between 
the  two  boundaries,  and  the  whole  coast  line  being  about  a  thousand  kilometres  in 
length— is  threatened  with  ruin,  ruin  compared  to  which  the  ravages  of  the 
phylloxera  are  mild.  Tne  last  news  that  we  have  from  the  Western  Province  wa& 
that  around  Flemeen,  on  the  frontier,  flights  of  locusts  were  alighting  uninter- 
mittently,  and  that  a  caravan  just  arrived  there  from  Morocco,  had  travelled  for 
thirty  days  in  the  midst  of  locusts,  the  country  being  entirely  devastated.1' 

SCRIPTURE  WARNINGS. 

Surely  the  warnings  given  through  the  prophets  Moses  and  Joel  were 
not  meaningless  dreams  ?  Warnings  of  results  that  were  sure  to  fallow 
in  the  wake  of  wilful  disobedience  to  nature's  teachings — results  foreseen 
by  Him  whose  servants  said  prophets  were  and  who  caused  them  to 
write  as  follows: — "Thou  shalt  carry  much  seed  out  into  the  field, 
and  shalt  gather  little  in;  for  the  locust  shall  consume  it.  Thou  shalt 
plant  vineyards  and  dress  them,  but  thou  shalt  neither  drink  of  the  wine, 
nor  gather  the  grapes,  for  the  worms  shall  eat  them.  Thou  shalt  have 
olive  trees  throughout  all  thy  borders,  but  thou  shalt  not  annoint  thyself 
with  the  oil,  for  thine  olive  shall  cast  its  fruit.  All  thy  trees  and  the  fruit 
of  thy  ground  shall  the  locubts  possess." — DEUT.  28.  And  after  centuries 
of  forest  destruction  Jo^l  wrote: — "  Hear  this  ye  old  men,  and  give  ear  all 
ye  inhabitants  of  the  land.  Hath  this  been  in  your  days,  or  in  the  days  of 
your  fathers?  Tell  ye  your  children  of  it,  and  let  their  children  tell  their 
children,  and  their  children  another  generation.  That  which  the  canker 
worm  hath  left  hath  the  locusts  eaten;  and  that  which  the  locusts  hath  left 
hath  the  canker  worm  eaten;  and  that  which  the  canker  worm  hath  left 
hath  the  caterpillar  eaten,  for  a  nation  (of  insect  plagues)  is  come  upon 
our  land  strong  and  without  number;  his  (locusts)  teeth  are  the  teeth  of 
the  lion,  and  he  hath  the  jaw-teeth  of  a  great  lion.  He  hath  laid  my  vine 
waste,  and  barked  my  fig  tree,  he  hath  made  it  clean  bare,  the  branches 
thereof  are  made  white.  ...  Be  ashamed  all  ye  husbandmen,  howl,  O  ye 
vine  dressers,  for  the  wheat  and  for  the  barley ,  for  the  harvest  of  the  field  is 
perished,  the  vine  is  withered  and  the  fig  tree  languisheth;  the  pome- 
granite  tree,  the  palm  tree  also,  and  the  apple  tree,  even  all  the  trees  of 
the  field  are  withered;  for  joy  (the  Father's  guiding  love)  is  withered 
away  from  the  sons  of  men.  The  seeds  rot  under  their  clods,  the  grasses 
lay  desolate,  the  barns  are  broken  down,  for  the  corn  is  withered.  How 
the  beasts  do  groan  !  the  herds  of  cattle  are  perplexed  because  they 
have  no  pasture  !" 

NKWMAN'S  CAUJSTA. 

"  The  plague  of  locusts,  one  of  the  most  awful  visitations  to  which  the 
countries  included  in  the  Roman  Empire  were  exposed,  extended  from  the 
Atlantic  to  Ethiopia,  from  Arabia  to  India,  and  from  the  Nile  and  Ked  Sea 
to  Greece  and  the  north  of  Asia  Minor.  Instances  are  recorded  in  historv 
of  clouds  of  the  devastating  insects  crossing  the  Black  Sea  to  Poland,  and 
the  Mediterranean  to  Lombardy.  It  is  as  numerous  in  its  species  as  it  is 
wide  in  its  range  of  territory.  Brood  follows  brood,  with  a  sort  of  family 


'  •  THE  LEA.VBS  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS."    31 

likeness,  yet  with  distinct  attributes,  as  we  read  in  the  prophets  of 
the  Old  Testament,  from  whom  Bochart  tells  us  it  is  possible  to 
enumerate  as  many  as  ten  kinds.  Even  one  flight  comprises  myriads  up- 
on myriads,  passing  imagination,  to  which  the  drops  of  rain,  or  the  sands 
of  the  sea  are  the  only  fit  companions;  and  hence  it  is  almost  a  proverbial 
mode  of  expression  in  the  East  (as  may  be  illustrated  by  the  Holy 
Scriptures),  by  way  of  describing  a  vast  invading  army,  to  liken  it  to  the 
locusts.  So  dense  are  they,  when  upon  the  wing,  that  it  is  no  exaggeration 
to  say  that  they  hide  the  aun,  from  which  circumstances,  indeed,  their 
name  in  Arabic  is  derived.  And  so  ubiquitous  are  they  when  they  have 
alighted  on  the  earth,  that  they  simply  cover  or  clothe  its  surface. 

"  This  last  characteristic  is  stated  in  the  sacred  account  of  the  plagues 
of  Egypt,  where  their  faculty  of  devastation  is  also  mentioned.  The  cor- 
rupting fly  and  the  bruising  and  prostrating  hail  preceded  them  in  the 
series  of  visitations,  but  they  came  to  do  the  work  of  ruin  thoroughly. 
For  not  only  the  crops  and  fruits,  but  the  small  twigs  and  the  bark  of  the 
trees  are  the  victims  of  their  curious  and  energetic  rapacity.  Nor  do  they 
execute  their  task  in  a  slovenly  way,  that,  as  they  have  succeeded  other 
plagues,  so  they  may  have  successors  themselves  (such  as  the  canker  worm, 
commonly  known  as  the  "  measuring  worm"  now  so  destructive  in 
California.) 

"They  take  pains  to  spoil  what  they  leave.  Like  the  harpies,  they  smear 
everything  that  they  touch  with  a  miserable  slime,  which  has  the  effect  of 
a  virus  in  corroding,  or  as  some  say,  in  scorching  and  burning.  And  then> 
perhaps,  as  if  all  this  were  too  little,  when  they  can  do  nothing  else,  they 
die,  as  if  out  of  sheer  malevolence  to  mankind,  for  the  poisonous  elements 
of  their  nature  are  then  let  loose  and  dispersed  abroad,  and  create  a  pesti- 
lence; by  which  they  manage  to  destroy  many  more  by  their  death  than  in 
their  life.  (After  locust  blizzards  in  Australia  great  ridges  of  the  dead  are 
generally  deposited  on  the  sea  shores  of  South  Australia,  of  inland  lakes, 
and  of  Hobson's  Bay  in  Victoria,  creating  a  fearful  stench). 

"Such  are  the  locusts — whose  existence  the  ancient  "heretics"  brought 
forward  as  their  primary  proof  that  there  was  an  evil  creator,  and  of  whom 
an  Arabian  writer  shows  his  national  horror,  when  he  says  that  they  have 
the  head  of  a  horse,  the  eyes  of  an  elephant,  the  heck  of  a  bull,  the  horns 
of  a  stag,  the  breast  of  a  lion,  the  belly  of  a  scorpion,  the  wings  of  an 
eagle,  the  legs  of  a  camel,  the  feet  of  an  oatrich  and  the  tail  of  a  serpent." 
(See  "The  More  Destructive  Locusts  of  America,  north  of  Mexico,"  by 
Lawrence  Bruner.  Issued  by  Professor  Biley,  1893). 

THE   VINE   AND   PHYLLOXERA   IN    CALIFORNIA. 

That  all  the  American,  Australian  and  other  vines  are  but  prolongations 
of  the  original  Adamic  stalk,  and  therefore  subject  to  kindred  ailments  from 
similar  environments  and  general  conditions,  is  well  shown  by  Professor 
George  Husmann  of  Chiles  Valley,  Napa  County,  California,  in  his  earliest 
work  on  "  Grape  Culture  and  Wine  Making  in  California,"  published  in 
November  of  1883,  from  which  I  now  quote  : — 

"It  is  well  known,  he  wrote,  that  the  earliest  beginnings  (in  California) 
were  made  by  the  Jesuit  Fathers  of  San  Gabriel,  with  what  has  since  become  known 
as  the  Mission  or  as  it  is  erroneously  called  by  many,  the  California  grape.  It  ia 
no  doubt  a  true  vinefera,  whether,  as  some  believe,  it  was  grown  from  the  seed  or 
from  cuttings  imported  from  Spun,  it  certainly  bears  no  resemblance  to  our  native 
wild  vine  vitis  Californica.  A  few  enterprising  men  saw  in  its  success  there  the 
probabilities  of  a  valuable  industry.  Their  experiments  were  rewarded  with 
abundant  crops  which  even  surpassed  their  expectations,  as  our  "  (then)"  dry  and 


32    "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS." 

equable  summers  favoured  the  development  of  the  grape,  and  although  it  was 
thought  in  those  days  imperatively  necessary  to  irrigate  the  vines,  they  found  that 
the  Mission  always  ripened  its  fruit  and  would  produce  large  crops,  under  a  very 
simple  and  convenient  system  of  prunning,  and  make  a  fair  drinkable  wine  in  most 
seasons  .  .  .  Many  progressive  men,  encouraged  by  the  evident  success  with 
the  Mission  grape,  imported  cuttings  of  choice  varieties  for  trial  from  France,  the 
.Rhine  and  Spain,  often  at  heavy  expense  and  risk;  they  were  planted  in  different 

sections,  and  mostly  found  to  succeed  well Farmers./bimd  that  the  Lands 

they  had  cropped  for  cereals,  until  they  were  exhausted  and  would  not  produce 
grain,  would  still  yield  large  crops  of  grapes  for  which  they  had  a  ready  market  at 
home.  It  is  certainly  not  surprising  if  they  became  over  sanguine  until  everybody 
and  their  neighbor  planted  grapes.  As  the  Mission  was  known  to  be  productive 
and  they  could  sell  all  they  could  grow  (the  communistic  organization  at  the 
Mission;  their  planting  of  carefully  selected  cuttings  and  rooted  vines  in  rich  virgin 
soil,  and  the  main  object  for  which  they  originally  laboured  being  to  produce  the 
choicest  wines  f^r  personal  use,  with  their  special  facilities  for  enriching  their 
grounds  and  for  systematically  prunning  the  vines  after  the  most  approved  con- 
tinental fashion,  as  also  the  snug  sheltering  tree  fringes  surrounding  their  establish- 
ment, were  evidently  completely  overlooked  by  neighboring  vine-planting  farmers, 
and  hence  doubtless — the  origin  of  existing  phylloxera  trouble).  A  good  many  vine- 
yards of  this  (mission)  variety  were  again  planted  together  with  a  large  acreage  of 
Zinfandel  and  Malvasia.  The  vineyards  were  to  a  large  extent  planted  Dy  men 
who  had  little  appreciation  of  fine  quality,  but  planted  grapes  simply  for  the 
money  they  could  make  out  of  them,"  .  .  .  (quite  regardless  of  after  conse- 
quences). 

'•'  Another  mistake  which  many  of  our  planters  have  made,  is  the  persistence  with 
which  they  have  planted,  and  are  planting  even  now,  the  vinifera  cuttings  and 
vines,  in  districts  affected  and  nearly  destroyed  by  the  Phylloxera.  They  ought 
to  profit  by  the  lessons  taught  in  France,  and  all  over  Europ3,  by  the  devastated 
vineyards  which  have  reduced  the  crop  of  France  to  about  one-third  of  what  it  was 
formerly,  until  the  greatest  grape  growing  nition  on  the  face  of  the  globe  cannot 
raise  sufficient  for  her  own  consumption  and  has  to  buy  from  all  her  neighbors  to 
meet  the  demand  of  her  customers.  The  devastations  m  ide  in  our  own  vineyards 
should  have  convinced  the  most  skeptical."  (Tne  italics  are  mine). 

The  alarming  official  report  which  was  published  at  the  commencement 
of  this  year  by  the  California  State  Boird  of  Viticulture,  concerning  the 
dreadful  condition  of  vineyards  through  the  Napa  county — where  Professor 
Husmann's  vineyard  is — should  favourably  commend  his,  the  professor's 
good  judgment,  though  heretofore  despised  by  local  viueyardists,  as  the 
following  extract  from  said  report  will  show:  "  Every  vineyard  portion  of 
Napa  county  has  been  visited  and  inspected.  .  .  Since  my  last  report,  two 
years  ago,  vineyards  in  this  county  have  been  greatly  lessened  in  number 
and  in  area,  in  many  portions  of  the  county.  Commencing  ten  years  ago 
in  the  lower  end  of  Napa  Valley,  and  supposed  to  have  been  brought  from 
Sonoma  Valley,  the  phylloxera  has  spread  almost  the  entire  length  of  the 
valley  in  the  direction  of  the  prevailing  wind.  Two  years  ago  a  few  vine- 
yards in  the  Napa  District  and  some  in  the  Yountville  District  were  in- 
fested. Since  that  time  it  has  spread  with  great  rapidity.  In  many  cases 
vineyards  of  considerable  extent  have,  in  the  meantime,  almost  or  wholly 
disappeared,  This  will  account  for  the  smaller  number  of  vinyards  re- 
ported this  year. 

"  No  remedy  to  prevent  the  spread  of  the  disease  has  been  discovered  .  .  . 
In  almost  every  vineyard  visited,  where  the  phylloxera  has  made  any  headway,  the 
vines  were  allowed  to  stand  without  treatment,  the  disease  taking  its  course.  When 
the  vines  were  dead  or  nearly  so,  they  were  pulled  out."  During  my  visit  through 
the  Napa  Valley  in  April  of  1892— accompanied  by  Professor  Husmann,  I  was  sur- 
prised to  find  nearly  all  the  vineyards  most  unreasonably  crowded  with  vines,  in 
many,  they  ranged  from  three  to  six  feet  apart.  Amongst  the  few  exceptions  was 


THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS."    33 

one  owned  by  Judge  John  A.  Stanly,  area  125  acres,  and  as  a  result  he  receives 
most  excellent  returns.  In  addition  to  the  commendable  manner  he  has  adopted  in 
the  planting  arrangements,  the  vineyard  is  snugly  surrounded  by  fringes  of 
eucalyptus  globulus,  and  in  his  report  to  the  viticultural  commission,  from  which  I 
now  quote,  he  wrote:— "Since  I  planted  my  first  resistants,  within  three  miles  of 
my  vineyard,  500  acres  have  been  planted  to  vines  and  eaten  up  by  phylloxera. 
My  vineyard  ia  flourishing."  The  Judge  assured  me  that  the  eucalypti  fringes 
thoroughly  protect  his  vineyard  from  hoar  frosts  and  severe  wind  storms.  Since 
the  said  official  report  was  issued,  the  phylloxera  plague  has  been  discovered  in 
Southern  California,  and  of  which  the  San  Francisco  Examiner  of  April  1st,  1893, 
writes  as  follows:— "  The  phylloxera,  the  insect  pest  which  has  caused  such  a  great 
loss  in  the  vineyards  of  Napa  and  Sonoma  counties  and  which  has  destroyed 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  acres  of  vines  in  France,  has  appeared  in  Southern  Cali- 
fornia in  a  small  vineyard  near  Santa  Ana.  Coming;  after  the  immense  damage 
that  has  been  done  by  the  Anaheim  disease,  (a  new  scourage)  this  is  most  dis- 
couraging to  the  vineyardists  of  this  section  of  the  State." 

Professor  Husmann's  statements  regarding  the  origin  and  early  history 
of  Californian  grape  culture — apart  from  any  other  cause  in  eastern 
States,  furnishes  colorable  reasons  to  justify  the  following  opinion  pub- 
lished in  a  German  work  on  the  Phylloxera  by  Dr.  Geo.  David: 

"The  nature  of  the  (phylloxera)  scourge  having  been  determined,  speculation 
became  rife  as  to  the  cause  of  its  appearance.  It  was  at  first  thought  that  the 
phylloxera  was  indigenous  to  Europe,  and  that  certain  external  influences  had 
brought  about  its  sudden  and  extraordinary  development.  This  view,  however, 
soon  met  with  contradiction,  and  it  is  now  proved  beyond  the  possibility  of 
a  doubt  that  the  disease  was  directly  imported  from  America.  At  Fonelbe, 
near  Tarascon;  at  Florida,  near  Bordeaux;  at  Klosternenberg  and  Oporto,  in  fact, 
in  whatever  point  the  disease  was  first  discovered,  it  is  distinctly  traceable  to  the 
introduction  of  American  plants  The  phylloxera  of  Europe  and  of  America  is 
identical;  this  is  proved  by  the  researches  of  Mr.  Kiley,  who  has  published  a  com- 
prehensive work  upon  the  subject.  In  America,  to  the  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
the  phylloxera  abounds,  and  no  European  vines  have  there  been  successfully  cul- 
tivated. In  those  regions,  however,  a  long  struggle  with  the  insect  has  resulted  in 
the  development  of  varieties  which  are  capable  of  resisting,  to  a  certain  extent,  its 
ravages,  but  which  are  in  all  other  respects  inferior  to  European  vines.  In  Europe 
the  case  is  different;  and  the  vines  attacked  by  an  enemy  that  they  had  no  heredi- 
tary tendency  to  resist,  have  inevitably  succumbed." 


FRENCH  REPORT  ON  THB  BI-SULPHATE  OF  CARBON  TREATMENT  FOR  THE 
Phylloxera  vastatrix  SCOURGE;  translated  and  re-published  by  Mr.  A.  K. 
Finlay  of  Glenoriston,  Australia,  September,  1880,  folios  8-9 — Said  report 
contains  the  following  concluding  remarks: — 

"The  first  applications  of  bi-sulphide  of  carbon  were  made  between  the  15th  of 
March  and  4th  of  April,  1877.  Tne  lower  part  received  a  repeated  treatment  at 
the  rate  of  fifteen  drachms  per  square  yard,  while  in  the  upper  portion  twelve 
drachms  per  square  yard  was  applied  in  a  single  operation.  In  1878  a  repeated 
treatment  was  carried  out  between  the  15th  and  30th  of  May,  over  the  whole  vine- 
yard. On  the  15th  of  July  some  insects  still  showed  themselves  on  the  lower  rows, 
and  an  injection  of  seven  drachms  per  square  yard  was  applied  in  a  single  operation. 
In  1878  a  repeated  treatment  was  carried  out  between  the  15th  and  30th  of  May 
over  the  whole  vineyard.  On  the  15th  of  July  some  insects  still  showed  themselves 
on  the  lower  rows,  and  an  injection  of  seven  drachms  per  square  yard  was  given  to 
the  three  first  lines." 

Turning  to  folio  9  of  said  translation  I  find  the  following  interesting 
paragraph: 
"  In  order  to  understand  the  wonderful  rapidity  with  which  the  phylloxera  advances, 


34:    "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS.' 

it  H  necessary  to  know  something  of  its  character.  The  insect  is  akin  to  the  aphis 
triba,  whose  fecundity  is  due  to  its  strange  system  of  generation,  which  Jias  been 
thus  succinctly  described:  "The  congregations  of  the  aphides  consist,  in  spring 
and  summer,  of  apterous  individuals,  and  of  nymphaa  with  undeveloped  wings. 
All  these  are  females,  which  give  birth  to  living  young,  satis  accomplement  pre- 
alable.  The  males  are  produced  towards  the  end  of  summer  or  during  the  autum- 
nal season.  They  fecundate  the  last  broods  produced  by  the  /emales  first  men- 
tioned, which  broods  differ  from  their  progenitors  in  requiring  impregnation  prior 
to  the  continuance  of  their  kind.  They  lay  eggs  after  the  sexual  intercourse,  and 
these  eggs  produce,  in  spring,  the  broods  above  alluded  to,  which  are  capable  of 
producing  living  young  without  assistance  from  each  other."  Article  on  Entom- 
ology, in  *'  Eucyclopaedia  Britannica" — "  Towards  the  end  of  summer  a  winged 
generation  appears,  the  migration  of  which  form  one  of  the  most  rapid  means  of 
spreading.  They  are  produced  upon  the  decomposition  of  rootlets  which  have 
baen  during  the  summer  subjected  to  attack.  Opinions  differ  as  to  the  sex  of  these 
winged  insects.  M.  Balbiani,  one  of  the  commissioners  appointed  by  the  French 
Academy  of  Sciences  to  investigate  the  subject,  hold  them  to  be  females,  while  Mr. 
Riley  asserts  that  they  are  both  male  and  female.  This  seems,  however,  a  matter 
of  small  importance,  since  there  can  be  no  question  that  they  propagate  the 
plague"  (?)  (This  is  a  popular  delusion  as  they  are  simply  an  amnitised  form  of 
nature's  scavengeis  evolved  from  their  torpid  condition  by  the  agency  of  our  soil, 
empoverishing  greed  for  personal  gain).  The  males  having  served  their  purpose  of 
fecundating,  die;  and  the  females,  having  laid  the  impregnated,  or  as  they  are 
called,  "  winter  eggs,"  enter  upon  a  state  of  hyber nation,  to  recommence  their  work 
of  generation  in  the  spring.  The  winter  egg,  likewise,  in  the  spring  fulfils  its 
functions  and  produces  the  nymph  which  brings  forth  living  young,  as  already 
described.  It  is  considered  that  eight  generations  of  these  nymphs  are  produced 
during  the  season,  before  the  appearance  of  the  veritable  female;  and  it  has  been 
calculated  that  the  progeny  of  a  single  insect  may  reach,  in  a  year,  the  number  of 
5,904.000,000.  These  figures  are  held  to  be  too  small  by  some  statisticians,  but  they 
may  be  very  liberally  reduced,  and  still  show  the  overwhelming  forces  which  the 
enemy  can  bring  into  the  field.  Before  such  numbers,  the  most  careful  organized 
system  of  defence  must  receive  many  a  rude  shock. 

"  The  full  grown  phylloxera  is  B-  small  almond-shaped  insect,  about  150th  of  an 
iaoh  long  and  130th  of  an  inch  broad;  it  is  armed  with  a  powerful  proboscis,  or 
sucking  tube,  with  which  it  pierces  the  roots  of  the  vine.  Although  it  may  be  said 
generally,  that  the  phylloxera  is  a  root-attaching  insect,  it  is  also  occasionally  found 
in  galls  upon  leaves,  more  especially  in  the  case  of  American  varieties;  and  it  has 
been  proved  by  experiments  that,  while  differing  slightly  in  appearance,  the  root 
and  gall  insects  are  virtually  identical,  and  that  each  is  capable  of  taking  the  place 
of  the  other.  The  winged  insect  already  alluded  to  is  the  shape  in  which  the 
phylloxera  is  most  to  be  dreaded.  The  wings  are  comparatively  large,  and  the  in- 
sect, being  light,  (resembling  fine  thistle-down)  it  is  carried  great  distances  by  the 
wind,  passing  easily  over  rivers,  forests,  and  long  intervening  spaces  which  are  not 
planted  with  vines.  That  this  forms  the  principal  means  of  migration  is  proved  by 
the  spread  of  the  pest  being  generally  in  the  direction  of  prevailing  winds.  The 
phylloxera  has,  however,  other  means  of  locomotion,  and,  in  favorable  localities, 
marches  with  great  rapidity.  There  is  no  sort  of  soil,  with  the  exception  of  sand, 
which  has  yet  been  found  to  hinder  its  progress;  but  level,  open  country,  more 
especially  when  it  is  of  a  nature  which  cracks  with  drought  is  the  most  favorable 
to  its  advance.  Atmospheric  conditions  have  their  influence  and  very  wet  sea- 
sons have  always  shown  a  diminution  of  the  scourage.  Still  no  permanent 
remedy  can  be  looked  for  even  from  the  most  continuous  rains." 

THE  PHYLLOXERA  IN   AUSTRALIA. 

The  first  report  of  the  presence  of  phylloxera  in  Australia  came  from  the  Gee- 
long  district,  in  1878,  "(where  as  in  California  "  farmers  found  that  the  lands 
they  had  cropped  for  cereals  until  they  were  exhausted,  and  would  not  produce 
grain  would  still  yield  large  crops  of  grapes. " )  "  According  to  the  Government  in- 
specters,  Messrs.  Wallis  and  Hopton,  thirteen  vineyards  were  found  to  be  infected 


"  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS."    35, 

with  the  disease,  and  were  uprooted  and  destroyed.  The  infection,  in  some  cases, 
had  evidently  been  of  long  standing,  and  the  vineyards  throughout  the  district 
generally  presented  a  most  delapidated  appearance.  Unfortunately,  the  inspectors 
were  appointed  too  late  for  any  beneficial  measures  to  be  taken,  for  the  flight  of  the 
winged  insects  was  already  nearly  ended.  The  inspectors  therefore  confined  their 
report  to  certain  observations  and  recommendations.  They  expressed  their  opinion, 
aggreeing  with  experience  elsewhere,  that  the  disease  was  not  due  to  poverty  or 
neglect  (!  !)  bat  that  it  had  bsen  imported  into  the  Geelong  district,  and  spread 
either  through  the  agency  of  the  winged  female,  or  the  distribution  of  rooted  vines 
or  vine  catlings.  They  ascer  tained  that  the  flight  of  the  winged  insects  commences 

about  the  end  of  December,  and  continued  till  the  first  week  in  February an 

observation  which  is  of  value  in  considering  the  work  of  eradication.  The  inspect- 
ors concluded  their  report  by  recommending  the  adoption  of  prohibiting  measures 
in  regard  to  the  importation  of  rooted  vines  and  vine-cuttings  and  the  uprooting  of 
all  uncultivated  vine-yards,  at  the  expense  of  the  proprietors. 

"  Daring  December,  1879,  by  direction  of  the  chief  Secretary,  some  experiments 
with  bi-sulphide  of  Carbon  were  made.  The  more  immediate  object  of  the  work 
was  to  test,  as  nearly  as  circumstances  would  admit,  the  effioacy  of  bi-sulphide  to 
stay  the  spread  of  phylloxera,  when  used  in  the  manner  patented  by  Mr,  Rohart, 
of  Paris.  The  Rohart  method,  in  brief,  is  to  bury,  at  convenient  distances  and 
depths,  around  the  roots  of  the  diseased  vines,  cubes  of  porous  wood  previously  im- 
pregnated with  bi-sulphide  of  Carbon,  and  coated  with  a  varnish  the  composi'tion 
and  manner  of  application  of  which  is  a  secret  reserved  by  the  patentee.  The 
experiments  were  devised  and  conducted  by  Mr.  Manly  Hopwood,  Chemist  and 
Analyst  to  the  Department  of  Agriculture.  At  the  time  they  were  carried  out  the 
country  was  very  dry  and  the  season  much  advanced,  circumstances  which  militated 
greatly  against  the  success  of  the  trials.  In  lieu  of  the  patent  cubes  of  M.  Rohart, 
Mr.  Hopwood  used  small  chip  boxes,  filled  with  dry  sand,  and  cubes  of  "  Infusorial" 
earth,  baked  to  expel  moisture.  Both  these  substitutes  were  charged  with  bi- 
sulphide of  carbon  at  the  moment  of  use,  and  buried  around  the  vines  in  holes 
made  with  an  iron  bar  to  the  depth  of  from  ten  to  twelve  inches.  By  experiment 
in  the  laboratory  it  had  been  found  that  the  evolution  of  bi-sulphide  of  carbon 
vapor  from  baked  infusorial  earth  is  comparatively  slow  and  even. 

"Mr.  Hop  wood's  experiments  yielded  results  agreeing  in  the  main  with  those 
obtained  in  Europe,  and  led  him  to  the  conclusion  that  the  employment  of  the 
Rohart  remedy  early  in  the  season  would  probably  be  efficacious  in  destroying  the 
underground  phylloxera.  But  since  the  system  is  only  applicable  before  the  in- 
sects have  reached  the  surface  in  the  winged  state,  he  points  out  the  great  im- 
portance of  determining  the  proper  time  for  the  application,  and  rightly  insists  up- 
on the  necessity  of  early  treatment.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  experiments 
made  by  Government  do  not  appear  to  have  stimulated  private  enterprise  in  the 
same  direction;  for,  so  far  as  can  be  ascertained,  no  further  trials  of  insecticides 
have  been  made  in  the  infected  districts."  (The  real  cause  remained  untouched.) 

Notwithstanding  the  Victorian  Inspectors  having  agreed  to  believe  that 
the  phylloxera  "disease"  in  and  around  Geelong  was  not  due  to  poverty 
and  neglect"  the  actual  facts  of  the  case  told  a  very  different  tale,  as  it  was 
well  known  to  many  local  residents  that  a  similar  process  of  vineyard 
forming  obtained  in  Geelong  to  what  happened — as  stated  by  Prof.  George 
Hussniann,  in  California.  To  my  personal  knowledge  the  Geelong  vine- 
yard plots  and  much  of  the  vineyard  soil  in  other  parts  of  Victoria, 
Australia  would  only  yield  rank  weeds  such  as  thistles  and  sorrel  from  a 
similar  soil  impoverishing  cause  when  planted  with  vines. 

PROFESSOR  F.    W.    MORSE 

In  a  work  entitled  "  Observations  on  the  Life,  History  and  Habits  of 
the  Phylloxera  in  California,"  made  from  1881  to  1886  by  Prof.  F.  W. 
Morse,  assistant  in  the  United  States  General  Agricultural  Laboratory, 
that  dreadful  insect's  mode  of  attack  is  described  as  follows:— 


36    "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  W6T6  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS. 

"There  is  one  point  worthy  of  note  as  throwing  some  light  upon  the  resisting 
power  of  vines;  it  is  the  manner  of  the  insects  attack.  In  the  common  vinefera 
even,  they  show  preference  for  particular  spots  on  the  roots,  selecting  those  places 
where  the  bark  is  softest,  usually  near  a  crack.  From  this  they  extend  upward  and 
downward  along  the  line  where  the  tissue  is  continuous  from  that  spot;  and  scarce- 
ly ever  do  we  find  them  working  at  right  angles  from  this  line.  When  the  sap  be- 
gins to  ooze  out  and  rotting  sets  in,  they  precede  it  closely,  always  leaving  a  number 
of  insects  to  continue  the  destruction  until  the  spot  becomes  completely  rotted  and 
gives  out  no  more  sap.  Large  numbers  of  insects  will  often  be  found  feeding  upon 
such  spots,  apparently  reluctant  to  leave  them -as  long  as  any  sustenance  can  be 
derived  therefrom.  So  closely  is  this  mode  of  working  followed,  that  in  many  old 
Mission  vines  they  will  be  found  only  on  a  single  spot,  while  the  remainder  of  the 
root  is  free  from  them.  A  root  covered  with  a  fuzzy  bark  is  noticeably  objectionable 
to  them,  a  harder  one  with  cracked  or  loosened  bark  is  preferred."  (Precisely  the 
mode  of  attack  in  Australia).  "Upon  a  thorough  resistant  (?)  stalk  the  insects  act 
cjuite  differently.  They  are  usually  scattered  about  apparently  at  a  loss  to  know 
just  where  to  begin  operations.  Their  first  piercings  are  made,  and  instead  of  a 
deep  rotting  which  completely  kills  the  bark  to  the  woody  tissue,  a  slight  thin  black- 
ening of  the  bark  takes  place,  which  does  not  extend  further,  and  if  made  on  the 
firmer  rootlets,  will  often  peel  of,  leaving  the  root  perfectly  smooth.  (Decom- 
position of  vines  must  precede  an  effective  attack  of  insects.) 

CONCERNING  KNOWN   REMEDIES. 

"  I  abstain  purposely  from  description  of  any  chemical  remedies,  because 
I  believe  them  too  costly  and  at  the  same  time  not  effectual  enough.  They 
give  us  no  guarantee — even  if  they  could  be  so  thoroughly  applied  as  to  exterminate 
all  the  insects  of  permanent  security;  as  they  may  at  any  time  be  again  transmitted 
to  the  same  vineyard,  making  continued  applications  necessary,  generally  with 
great  danger  to  the  vines.  Only  in  cases  when  it  is  desirable  to  save  a  valuable 
piece  of  vineyard  of  a  choice  variety,  it  may  be  advisable  to  use  Dr.  Baner's  mer- 
curial remedy,  which,  so  far,  is  the  most  promising,  least  dangerous  (?)  and  cheap- 
est of  all  that  have  been  tried.  Insecticides,  of  whatever  kind  and  description,  are 
too  costly  in  their  application,  and  have  to  be  renewed  too  often  to  ever  become 
practicably  applicable  here  or  even  in  Europe.  The  lowest  cost  of  their  appli- 
cation, of  which  I  have  seen  an  estimate,  is  about  thirty  dollars  per  acre,  more  than 
the  general  annual  cost  of  cultivation,  and  this  is  only  a  temporary  remedy  which 
must  be  renewed  every  year  to  be  of  any  use  at  all.  Besides  great  care  must  be 
exercised  in  their  application,  for  an  overdose  will  kill  or  fatally  icjure  the  vines. 
The  pest  is  liable  to  appear  at  any  time,  and  thus  it  needs  constant  doctoring  "  (as 
do  the  human  plant)"  with  costly  remedies  to  keep  the  patient  even  in  a  state  be- 
tween life  and  death." 

Professor  Husmann  in  his  subsequent  work  on  "  Grape  Culture 
and  Wine  Making  in  California,"  published  on  October  20th,  1887, 
referring  to  the  Phylloxera  and  the  much  relied  on  "  resistant"  savs 
(folio  83): 

"  First  of  all  it  is  necessary  to  dispel  the  illusion  entertained  by  some  that  re- 
sistant vines  are  such  as  are  not  attacked  by  the  Phylloxera.  So  far  as  our  know- 
ledge extends  at  this  time,  the  insect  will  feed  on  any  and  all  of  the  members  of 
the  true  vine  tribe  (vitis  proper)  when  occasion  offers;  but  it  is  evident  that  some 
are  better  adapted  to  the  taste^  or  nature  of  the  phylloxera  than  others,  and  are 
therefore  more  numerously  infested  when  planted  in  the  same  ground  with 
others;  just  as  cattle  will  pasture  on  the  sweet  grasses  in  preference  to  the  sour 
ones.  The  European  vine  (vinefera)  appears  on  the  whole  to  be  the  one  most 
uniformly  adapted  to  the  insects  taste  in  all  its  varieties,  and  is  always  attacked  in 
preference.  It  evidently  offers  the  best  conditions  to  the  life  and  multiplication  of 
the  pest.  It  is  not,  then,  a  proof  of  non-resistance  when  a  vine  is  found  to  be 
more  or  less  infested  ;  for,  as  far  as  we  know,  there  are  no  true  vines  of  which  the 
phylloxera  will  not  attack  the  roots  when  presented  to  them.  ..'... 


THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  W6T6  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS. 


37 


But  every  vine,  like  other  plants,  is  subject  to  certain  conditions  of  soil,  climate 
and  atmosphere  for  its  welfare.  Any  vine  or  any  other  plant  may  be  planted 
where  from  unfavorable  conditions  it  will  not  flourish,  and  where  a  slight  addition 
to  the  adverse  influences  may  cause  it  to  either  die  or  maintain  only  a  feeble 

existence The  resistant  vines  are  no  exception  to  this  general  rule. 

They  have  been  planted  and  expected  to  yield  satisfactory  results,  where  vines 
have  been  fruited  for  twenty  or  thirty  years  without  the  use  of  a  particle  of  man- 
ure, and  where,  as  a  result,  the  old  vines  as  well  as  the  new  "resistant"  ones 
have  died  from  sheer  inanition.  They  have  been  planted  where  no  vine  ever 
should  be.  (And  hence  the  existing  phylloxera  trouble). 

THE    PHYL.LOXERA    QUESTION. 

"  That  this  is  a  serious  one,  likely  to  effect  our  industry  in  all  its  branches,  will 
hardly  be  denied  by  anyone.  If  we  look  at  the  devastated  vineyards  in  Europe, 
if  we  consider  the  ruin  it  has  brought  to  thousands  of  formerly  happy  and  con- 
tented homes  in  France,  how  its  ravages  have  decimated  this  leading  industry,  HO 
that  now  they  do  not  produce  wine  enough  for  their  own  consumption,  but  buy 
where  they  formerly  almost  supplied  the  world  ;  how  its  ravages  are  already  felt 
in  Algiers,  in  Austria,  and  wherever  vines  are  grown — we  will  hardly  question 
that  it  is  the  great  disaster  threatening  everywhere,  including  this  continent. 
Indeed,  we  have  evidence  sufficient  of  its  destructiveness  in  this  State,  it  will  make 
itself  seen  and  felt,  and  no  mechanical  or  chemical  means  have  as  yet  been  found 
that  are  of  real  practical  value.  All  the  insecticides  that  have  so  far  been  tried 
have  proved  too  costly  and  impractical  in  their  application." 

COMPARATIVE  RESULTS. 

Since  the  issue  of  Prof.  Husmann's  first  work  from  which  I  have  also 
quoted,  adverse  climatic  conditions  have  been  steadily  increasing  through- 
out America  from  the  cause  already  stated.  In  proof  of  which ,  extracts 
from  the  respective  works  in  parallel  positions,  with  regard  to  California 
somewhat  testifies  : — 


"American   drape    Growing    and    Wine 
making,"  November  9th,  1883. 

"  A  visit  to  this  shore  in  the  summer 
of  1881  convinced  me  that  this  was  the 
true  home  of  the  grape,  and  that  Cali- 
fornia with  her  sunny  and  dry  summers 
and  her  mild  winters,  was  destined  to  be 
the  wine  land  of  the  world;  that  prom- 
ised land  where  everyone  could  sit  under 
his  own  vine  and  fig  tree.  Disease  of 
the  vine  are  here  comparatively  un- 
known, the  rainless  summers,  when  no 
showers  are  expected  from  May  until 
September,  allow  nearly  all  the  crop  to 
ripen  every  year.  .  .  .  These  favor- 
able climaltic  conditions  simplify  the  cul- 
ture and  training  of  the  vine,  the  gath- 
ering of  the  fruit,  and  the  operations  in 
wine  making.  ...  In  this  climate 
it  becomes  possible  that  one  man  can 
own  and  superintend  hundreds  of  acres 
of  vineyard."  \ 

Now,  in  1893,  Calif ornian  vineyards  are  rapidly  becoming  hopelessly 
diseased. 


'*  American    Grape    Growing    and     Wine 
Making,"  November  20th,  1887. 

Apologizing  for  the  delay  in  the  issu- 
ing of  his  new  work,  Prof.  Husmann 
wrote  :  "I hoped  to  complete  it  before 
the  vintage  so  that  it  could  be  of  some 
use  perhaps  during  its  progress.  But 
unavoidable  delays  have  drawn  it  out  to 
the  end  of  the  vintage  of  this  truly  ab- 
normal year,  abnormal  in  its  late  and 
destrucrive  frosts,  its  hot  winds  during 
summer  causing  a  great  deal  of  coulure, 
and  its  unusally  hot  weather  during  the 
vintage,  It  has  been  one  of  the  most 
difficult  seasons  to  handle  a  vineyard 
and  wine  cellar  which  will  ever  occur 
here  I  trust,  and  has  taught  us  many 
and  severe  lessons." 


38         "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS." 
VINE  TROUBLES   IN    FRANCE. 

(From  the  San  Francisco  Chronicle  of  December  lth}  1892.) 

PARIS,  November  15.— The  annual  vintage,  one  of  the  greatest  fetes  known  in 
French  rural  districts,  is  ended  ;  the  grapas  are  gathered,  and  the  vignerons,  their 
work  finished,  have  filled  their  glasses  and  sung,  for  the  last  time  until  another 
autumn,  the  old  refrain  : 

Bon  Francais,  quand  je  vois  mou  verre 
Plein  deuce  vin  couleur  de  feu, 
Je  songe  en  remerciant  Dieu 
Qu'ils  n'en  ont  pas  en  Angleterre  ! 

"All  the  slopes  in  the  south,  the  center,  the  east,  and  the  west,  all  those  in  the 
Burgundy  and  in  the  Gueyenne,  in  the  Champagne  and  in  the  Gascogny,  in  the 
Lorraine  and  in  the  Languedoc;  all  those  plains  of  Anjou  and  Touraine,  as  well  as 
the  mountains  of  Auvergne  and  of  Dauphiny,  have  been  heard  from,  and  we 
know  now  of  the  quantity  and  quality  of  this  year's  wine  harvest. 

"For  a  quarter  of  a  century  the  phylloxera  has  been  among  French  vines.  The 
Gard,  the  Herault  and  the  valley  of  the  Rhone  were  the  regions  in  which  that 
destructive  insect  was  first  found,  and  then  came  the  turn  of  the  Bordelais  and 
the  Charente.  The  plantations  in  the  center  of  France  and  those  in  Burgundy 
were  not  touched  but  in  the  afflicted  districts  milldew,  odium,  and  other  evils  also 
fell  on  the  great  fields.  The  average  produce  of  wine  fell  from  thirty-five  and 
forty  hectoliters  per  hectare  to  twelve  and  fourteen  only,  and  in  four  or  five  years 
land  had  lost  $200,000,000  of  its  value. 

"France  is  not  the  largest  wine  producer  in  the  world,  however.  There  are 
21,215,125  acres  of  vineyards  in  Europe,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  earth  shows  less 
than  1,000,000  acres  Italy  figures  at  the  top  with  8,010,000  acres  planted  in 
grapes,  France  comes  next  with  5,832,000  acres,  and  Spain  is  third  with  3,745,000 
acres.  Last  year  Italy  produced  806,000,000  gallons  of  wine,  Spain  702,000,000 
gallons,  Austria-Hungary  235,000,000  gallons,  Germany  63,800,000  gallons; 
Switzerland  25,800,000  gallons,  and  over  70,000,000  gallons  were  produced  in 
Algeria. 

"  Phylloxera  in  Champagne  !  You  can  perhaps  imagine  the  excitement  there 
was  all  over  this  country,  and  the  excitement  was  not  lessened  the  past  summer 
when  it  was  discovered  that  other  vineyards  had  been  attacked.  Champagne 
making  is  the  fortune  of  that  part  of  France,  and  it  is  an  enormous  fortune.  In 
plentiful  years  the  production  of  white  champagne  wine  is  not  less  than  80,000,000 
bottles.  But  the  vineyards  of  Champagne  are  more  vigorous  and  healthy  than  all 
others,  hence  they  were  able  to  resist  the  phylloxera.  Still  tons  of  sulphide  of 
carbon  have  been  used  up  there,  and  the  vines  that  were  infected  with  the  disease 
were  cut  away  and  burned  and  the  soil  was  poisoned 

"There  is  not  much  possibility  that  the  prize  of  $60,000  offered  by  the  State  to  the 
discoverer  of  an  efficacious  means  of  destroying  phylloxera  will  ever  be  awarded." 

Just  as  certain  as  the  suicidal  practice  of  depleting  the  human  body 
by  indiscriminate  blood-letting  to  cure  disease  had  to  give  way  to  a  more 
rational  mode  of  treatment,  so  also  must  the  prevailing  theories  of  vine 
cure  succumb  to  the  light  of  wisdom  and  common  sense. 

The  phylloxera  made  its  appearance  in  the  south  of  France  about  the 
year  1863  and  destroyed  a  great  many  vineyards  before  its  presence  was 
discovered.  One  of  the  first  victim's  whoe-e  vineyard  was  destroyed  and 
rooted  up  in  1867,  replanted  another  part  of  his  estate  the  following  winter. 
He  divided  the  ground  to  be  planted  in  three  different  parts  of  equal  size, 
and  as  much  as  possible,  containing  the  same  nature  of  soil.  Each  plot  was 
planted  with  the  same  kind  of  vine,  and  received  the  same  treatment  even 
after,  with  the  only  difference  that  each  lot  of  vines  was  planted  on  a  dif- 
ferent scale.  One  was  planted  4x4,  or  four  feet  every  way,  the  other 
6x6,  or  six  feet  every  way,  the  last  one  planted  10  x  10,  or  ten  feet 


"  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  W6T6  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS."    39 

every  way.  The  whole  vineyard  was  treated  alike  for  thirteen  years  after- 
wards, well  worked  and  heavily  manured  periodically.  In  1880,  a  com- 
mission from  the  French  Vinegrowers  Association  was  sent  to  that  district 
to  inspect  the  vineyards  in  connection  with  the  phylloxera.  The  trans- 
lation of  the  report  relative  to  the  above  mentioned  vineyard  runs  as  fol- 
lows:— 

"  When  we  arrived  at  the  estate  of  Mr.  X,  in  the  Department  du  Gard,  and  had 
been  introduced  by  Mr.  B,  Mr.  X  received  us  in  a  most  kindly  manner,  showed  us 
all  round  the  vineyard,  kindly  supplying  us  with  any  information  we  required. 
This  vineyard,  which  is  divided  into  three  equal  parts,  has  been  planted  about 
thirteen  years,  after  having  been  destroyed  by  phylloxera  in  1867.  Each  part  was 
planted  on  a  different  scale.  One  was  planted  4x4,  another  6x6,  and  the  third 
10  x  10.  Each  of  them  has  been  well  worked,  well  and  regularly  manured  every 
three  years  ever  since  they  have  been  planted.  The  vines  in  the  first  part  planted 
4x4,  are  nearly  all  dead,  except  a  few  around  the  rows  along  the  roads-,  those  in 
the  second,  planted  6x6  are  still  all  alive,  but  look  very  sickly,  and  Mr.  X  told  us 
that  the  grapes  he  had  gathered  from  them  for  the  last  few  years  did  not  pay  his  ex- 
penses, and  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  hope  he  still  had  of  curing  them  he  should 
have  rooted  them  up  long  ago.  The  vines  in  the  space,  planted  10  x  10  were  grow- 
ing luxuriantly,  and  were  bending  under  the  weight  of  their  fruit.  With  the  help  of 
Mr.  X,  we  dug  up,  ourselves,  vines  roots  in  several  places  in  the  three  different 
parts  of  the  vineyard  and  we  found  that  they  were  pretty  well  all  alike,  covered 
with  insects.  But  roots  from  the  wide  plantation  did  not  seem  to  be  affected  by  their 
presence,  while  the  roots  from  the  two  other  parts  were  all  more  or  less  advanced 
in  decomposition."— (Where,  when  and  how  to  plant  the  vine,  by  I.  Couslandt, 
Australia,  1883,  folios  13  and  14.) 

It  should  here  be  noticed  that  though  the  above  vineyard  soil  was  over- 
run with  phylloxera — evolved  from  the  closely  planted  vines,  they  were 
utterly  powerless  to  penetrate  those  planted  10  x  10. 

ATMOSPHERIC    GERMS. 

The  following  extract  from  a  seriously  interesting  lecture  delivered  at 
the  Cooper  Medical  College,  San  Francisco,  on  the  evening  of  Friday, 
February  24th,  1893,  by  Dr.  W.  F.  Cheney,  faintly  illustrates  some  of 
the  "  blessings"  we  eojoy  from  our  chronic  contempt  for  the  earth's 
forest-lungs  in  and  around  centers  of  population  : — 

"  The  lecture  proved  quite  instructive  and  was  listened  to  attentively  by  a  large 
and  appreciative  audience."  The  lecturer  said  :  "  To  prove  the  presence  in  the 
air  of  living  forms  this  simple  test  will  suffice  :  Take  a  little  glassful  of  bullion 
broth,  filtered  to  remove  all  bits  of  beef  fibre.  Such  a  liquid  is  clear  as  crystal 
and  shows  under  the  microscope  not  a  sign  of  life,  no  matter  how  closely  < 
ined.  Let  this  stand  for  a  few  days  in  a  warm  place  and  then  examine  it  again. 
The  fluid  is  no  longer  clear,  but  turbid,  and  a  drop  placed  beneath  the  microscope 
will  be  found  crowded  with  living  things  that  jostle  one  another  and  hasten  to  and 
fro  across  the  scene  like  busy  human  beings  in  a  city  street.  We  scott  perchance, 
at  miracles.  Yet  here  is  surely  one.  What  magic  art  has  wrought  this  change  ? 
Whence  have  come  these  innumerable  specks  of  life?  This  was  an  unsolved 
problem  long  after  the  microscope  had  revealed  their  existence.  Men  coulc 
doubt  their  eyes— the  living  things  were  present  in  the  fluid  beyond  question,  but 
what  had  been  their  origin  ? 

(Wholesale  forest  destruction  and  heartless  selfishness  in   many  such 
like  forms  as  the  following  extract  from  the  8.  F.  Examiner  of  April  26th, 
1893   denotes  :     "The  Grand  Jury  will  perform  an  important  public  i 
vice  if  it  sets  to  the  bottom  of  the  frauds  in  sewer  and  street  paving  con- 
tracts of  the  last  few  years.     The  city  and  the  property  owners  have  been 


40    "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  W6T6  FOE  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS." 

badly  swindled  by  conscienceless  contractors.  Contracts  have  been  vio- 
lated, specifications  ignored,  and  money  collected  for  work  that  has  not 
been  done.  The  sewer  commission  has  found  numerous  instances  in 
which  every  rule  of  good  work  has  been  violated.  Rotten  brick  has  been 
used,  mortar  has  been  made  of  mud,  and  the  trenches  have  been  dug  so 
that  the  sewer  in  the  center  of  a  block  has  been  higher  than  at  either 
end.  This  is  something  worse  than  swindling.  It  is  a  crime  that  in- 
eludes  the  deliberate  poisoning  of  the  people  who  live  along  the  line  of 
the  rotten  work.  This  form  of  rascality  is  deserving  of  severer  punish, 
ment  than  falls  to  the  lot  of  the  common  thief  or  pickpocket.  If  the 
man  who  breaks  into  a  house  to  steal  a  loaf  of  bread  gets  a  dozen  years 
in  prison,  the  rascal  who  cheats  the  citizens  and  the  city  by  laying  a  rot- 
ten  sewer  deserves  a  lifetime  behind  the  walls  of  Folsom.") 

"  It  was  discovered  that  the  generation  of  these  swarms  can  be  prevented  in  a 
very  simple  way.  That  if  the  bullion  is  kept  for  some  time  at  boiling  temperature 
and  then  sealed  at  once  to  prevent  the  access  of  air,  it  will  remain  clear  for  days, 
tor  weeks,  for  indefinite  periods,  and  show  no  trace  of  living  forms  on  microscopi- 
cal examination.  The  sole  difference  in  the  treatment  of  the  fluid  in  the  two  cases 
has  been  the  exclusion  of  air.  And  so  men  came  to  look  in  the  air  for  the  source 
of  the  changes  so  long  misunderstood.  Then  slowly,  step  by  step,  came  the  name 
cocci,  from  the  Greek  word  meaning  a  berry  or  pill.  Others  look  like  short  rods, 
and  hence  get  the  name  bacteria,  from  the  Greek  word  meaning  a  rod.  Still 
others  of  a  similar  shape,  hut  a  little  longer,  are  called  bacilli,  from  the  Latin 
word  meaning  a  staff.  And,  lastly,  there  are  forms  called  spirilli,  because  they 
look  like  long,  twisted  spirals.  Though  science  gives  these  distinctive  names  to 
different  forms,  yet  popular  usage  designates  all  germs  as  bacteria,  regardless  of 
their  shape.  In  size,  though  all  are  visible  to  the  naked  eye,  there  is  nevertheless 
great  variation  among  them.  Some  of  the  cocci  are  but  1-20,000  of  an  inch  in 
diameter,  so  that  20,000  of  them  together  in  a  heap  would  occupy  only  one  cubic 
inch  of  space.  Some  of  the  spirilli,  on  the  other  hand,  attain  a  length  of  1-300 
of  an  inch,  but  with  germs  as  with  men,  the  stature  of  the  individual  bears  no 
relation  to  its  influence  or  to  its  possibilities. 

"  In  structure  all  these  living  germs  are  bnt  simple  vegetable  cells.  Imagine  a 
minute  speck  of  matter  of  jelly-like  consistency,  the  surface  a  little  more  firm  and 
dense  than  the  center.  Such  is  the  living  cell,  the  last  step  in  the  subdivision  of 
all  living  structures.  The  anatomist,  with  his  knife,  can  dissect  the  animal  body 
and  reveal  the  different  tissues  of  what  it  is  composed — the  muscles,  the  bones,  the 
arteries  and  the  nerves  and  the  connecting  strands  that  binds  the  partis  together. 
But  with  his  microscope  he  goes  on  far  beyond  that  point  and  learns  that  each 
muscle,  bone  and  nerve  is  itself  made  up  of  multitudes  of  individual  cells,  diff- 
ering vastly  in  shape  and  size  according  to  the  tissue  in  which  they  are  found,  but 
all  essentially  the  same  in  structure.  So  the  botanist  can  take  apart  the  plant  and 
show  its  various  tissues,  but  each  of  those  tissues,  beneath  the  microscope,  becomes 
at  last  a  mass  of  tiny  cells.  Beyond  this  point,  either  in  animal  or  vegetable 
tissue,  no  eye  has  ever  seen,  and  these  cells  become  knowledge  that  in  the  atmos- 
phere everywhere  float  seeds  or  germs  of  life,  constantly  on  the  alert  for  a  con- 
genial spot  where  they  may  alight  and  make  their  home.  With  this  discovery  the 
old  doctrine  of  spontaneous  generation  had  at  last  to  be  discarded.  It  was"  not 
given  up  without  a  struggle  and  many  a  wordy  battle,  but  to-day  there  are  few  in- 
deed who  believe  in  it. 

^  "Not  content  with  finding  that  the  earth  contains  such  germs,  science  has  de- 
vised ways  for  estimating  their  number  ;  has  made  out  their  structure;  has  learned 
how  they  reproduce  their  kind,  and  has  become  familiar  with  the  habits  of  in- 
dividual varieties.  An  ingenious  French  scientist,  after  painstaking  experiments, 
has  calculated  that  in  the  ordinary  atmosphere  of  a  large  city  there  are  2,000 
germs  to  every  cubic  yard  ;  in  the  air  of  a  room  or  house  in  winter,  kept  closed  to 
exclude  the  cold,  he  estimates  that  there  are  45,000  germs  to  every  cubic  yard, 
and  in  the  wards  of  a  long-used  hospital  he  found  90,000  germs  in  the  same  air 
space. 


"  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS.  '    41 

11  The  same  French  scientist  found  that  in  summer,  whether  in  city  or  country 
the  air  contains  three  or  four  times  more  germs  than  in  winter  ;  that  the  air  at 
elevations  is  always  less  densely  populated  by  them  than  that  near  the  surface  of 
the  earth,  and  that  the  air  on  sea  or  on  mountain  heights  is  almost  entirely  free 
from  them.  It  is  generally  to  be  regretted  that  this  scientist  did  not  extend  his 
investigations  to  the  atmosphere  of  one  of  our  Mission-street  horse-cars,  habitually 
crowded  with  passengers  and  with  every  door  and  window  tightly  closed.  The 
man  who  does  examine  one  of  these  tor  germs  will,  no  doubt,  find  "  there's  mil- 
lions in  it !" 

"The  dwellers  of  the  air  vary  greatly  in  size.  Some  appear  under  the  microscope 
as  minute,  rounded  dots.  These  have  been,  therefore,  the  points  of  beginning  for 
all  living  things.  From  such  an  assumed  origin  comes  every  plant,  every  animal 
and  every  human  creature,  by  multiplication  and  differentiation,  by  growth  and 
development.  The  difference  between  a  bacterium  and  a  man  is  that  the  bacteri- 
um never  gets  beyond  the  starting-point.  It  begins  and  ends  its  existence  as  a 
single  cell.  Such  as  it  is  in  structure  all  living  creatures  once  were,  and  the  mys- 
tery of  its  origin  and  creation  is  as  great  as  that  of  man.  The  humble  coccus, 
standing  on  the  very  threshold  of  that  domain  where  living  things  abound,  pre« 
sents  a  problem  as  profound  as  that  of  the  genesis  of  a  human  soul.  It  possesses 
life,  and  that  possession  in  spite  of  its  simple  form  makes  the  coccus  an  object  of 
absorbing  interest  and  of  deepest  awe. 

"One  of  the  most  familiar  manifestations  ot  the  presence  in  air  of  unseen  germs  is 
the  formation  of  mold,  such  as  is  frequently  seen  on  bread,  fruit  or  cheese.  To  the 
naked  eye  this  is  only  an  ugly  scum  or  fuzz  that  can  be  easily  scraped  away  from 
the  surface  and  causes  no  perceptible  changes  in  the  parts  beneath.  Under  the 
microscope  this  would  become  a  luxuriant  field  of  green  as  beautiful  as  tbe  expanse 
of  waving  grain  that  clothes  the  plains  in  spring-time.  Air  always  contains  these 
mold  germs,  but  they  do  not  take  root  and  grow  on  the  surface  where  they  chance 
to  light,  else  mold  would  be  the  rule  instead  of  an  occasional  occurrence.  These  in- 
finitisimal  seeds  must  be  well  watered  or  they  die.  This  we  express  when  we  say 
that  mold  forms  only  in  places  that  are  moist  or  damp.  The  mold  germ  that  thrives 
on  bread  is  not  the  one  that  finds  nourishment  in  the  juice  of  fruits,  nor  the  one 
that  lives  by  preference  in  the  barnyard. 

"Some  years  ago,  during  excavations  in  the  buried  city  of  Pompeii  there  were 
found  several  jars  of  preserved  figs,  hermetically  sealed,  which  had  been  prepared 
by  some  good  housewife  of  that  ill-fated  city,  eighteen  hundred  years  before  When 
these  jars  were  opened  the  figs  proved  to  be  as  fresh  and  delicious  as  if  put  away 
only  the  summer  previous.  It  is  said  that  that  discovery  taught  the  present  century 
the  art  of  preserving  fruit.  This  art,  so  familiar  to  every  household,  depends  mere- 
ly on  the  exclusion  of  the  germs  of  fermentation.  There  are  other  kinds  of  germs 
whose  importance  is  very  great,  for  they  find  their  residence,  not  in  the  dead,  bir, 
in  living  tissues,  and  thus  become  a  menace  to  the  health  and  even  the  life  of  man. 
Does  all  air  contain  disease  germs,  and  is  there  any  way  to  prevent  their  presence 
there  ?  These  are  questions  of  vital  importance  to  the  human  race.  Fortunate  y 
for  man,  such  germs  are  not  always  hovering  about  him.  Air  is  seldom  entirely 
free  from  microscopic  forms  of  life,  but  the  majority  of  such  is  perfectly  harmless  to 
man  (?)  It  is  only  exceptionally  that  air  contains  those  varieties  that  cause  disease. 
There  are  two  sources  for  their  occurrence  in  the  air  of  any  particular  locality: 

"First:  They  come  from  decomposing  material;  for  while  some  disease  germs  will 
not,  so  far  as  known,  multiply  outside  of  the  body  of  infected  animals  or  human 
lungs,  there  are  others  that  do  multiply  abundantly  under  favorable  conditions  as 
to  food  and  temperature.  This  is  the  case  with  germs  of  typhoid  fever,  diphtheria, 
slanders,  cholera  and  erysipelas.  All  of  these  thrive  in  filth  of  any  sort.  be 
fecond  source  of  disease  germs  in  the  air  of  a  locality  is  the  presence  of  cases  of 
disease.  From  a  human  bodv  in  which  these  parasites  are  living  some  are  con 
stantly  escaping.  Deprive  disease  germs  of  the  inefficient  sewers  which  are  to  them 
as  the  promised  land,  flowing  with  milk  and  honey  and  build  more >  harbors ^  of 
refuge,  equipped  with  the  means  to  put  the  enemy  to  route-then  and  not  till  then 
will  the  city  become  a  safe  place  for  residence  when  epidemics  threaten.  (S.  F. 
Bulletin,  February  25,  1893.) 


42    "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS." 

THE   MEDITERRANEAN   FLOUR-MOTH. 
(from  the  San  Francisco  Morning  Call,  Dec.  8,  1892.) 

"The  terrible  ephestia  kuhniella  (Zeller)  is  spreading  millions  of  darkening  wings, 
and  coming  as  the  locusts  came  by  the  Mle.  They  started  from  Eastern  Europe 
several  years  ago,  and,  advancing  like  the  cholera,  and  by  si.nilar  means,  have  now 
reached  the  Pacific  Coast.  They  are  stopping  whirring  flouring- mills,  and  are  in 
our  daily  bread,  our  morning  gems,  pancakes  and  mush  and  our  evening  pies  and 
sweet  cakes.  There  is  no  joke  about  it.  The  Mediterranean  flour  moth  is  really 
<^oing  those  things.  It  has  just  gained  a  fair  foothold  here,  and,  as  it  rapidly  spreads, 
it  is  proving  a  very  expensive,  annoying  and  disagreeable  insect  pest.  The  annoy- 
ance promises  to  increase  rapidly,  and  a  determined  warfare  will  soon  be  waged 
against  it  generally  throughout  the  State.  The  flour-moth  bad  not  been  heard  of 
here  until  two  or  three  years  rgo  when  it  appeared  in  a  few  mills  in  this  city,  and 
it  has  been  but  a  few  months  since  it  began  to  attract  general  attention  among  the 
millers,  as  it  gradually  spread  from  mill  to  mill,  but  it  has  already  cost  them 
thousands  of  dollars,  and  they  have  just  become  thoroughly  wakened  to  an  alarmed 
inquiry  about  the  pest  and  how  to  fight  it.  It  seems  strange  that  a  noiseless  little 
moth  less  than  an  inch  long  and  so  light  it  cannot  withstand  a  breath  should  stop 
*  the  steam  driven  shafts  of  a  great  flouring- mill  from  turning,  but  it  does.  It  does 
more  than  that,  too.  It  ruins  fresh  flour  and  meal  by  the  barrel,  and  it  makes  the 
housewife  turn  up  her  nose  in  disgust  while  she  is  getting  breakfast  and  then  go 
back  to  the  groceryman  with  a  complaint.  It  makes  the  groceryman  complain  to 
the  miller,  and  along  the  line  from  the  miller  to  the  breakfast  table  there  is  turn- 
ing up  of  noses,  a  loss  of  good  flour  and  oatmeal  and  buckwheat  and  a  general 
wondering  what  is  the  matter.  People  may  now  understand  it  all  and  lay  the  blame 
on  Providence  or  foreign  immigration.  (Yes,  "lay  the  blame  on  Providence,"  as 
we  have  always  done,  to,  if  possible,  shirk  our  own  responsibilities.) 
It  seemed  odd  that  an  insect  at  this  late  age  of  the  world  should  discover  for  the  first 
time  that  flour  was  good  eating  and  that  flourmills  made  good  homes  after  letting 
flourmills  alone  for  ages,  but  Professor  Johnson  Could  not  explain  this  late  pro- 
gressive move  of  the  flour- moth." 

A  WAIL  FROM   MALTA. 

A  highly  interesting  letter  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  John  H.  Cook,  of 
St.  Julian,  Malta,  dated  September  22nd,  1892,  referring  to  "The  re- 
markable falling  off  in  the  quantity  and  quality  of  the  fruit"  in  that  part 
of  the  world,  appeared  in  the  printed  Reports  of  the  Consuls  of  the  Uni- 
ted States,  No.  149,  February,  1893,  (folios  261-263).  Mr.  Cook  declares, 
and  evidently  U.  S.  Consul  Worthington  affirms: — 

"  That  unless  some  energetic  measures  be  adopted  to  counteract  the  influences  of 
the  causes  that  are  at  work,  within  a  comparatively  brief  period  of  time  many  fruits, 
such  as  the  orange  and  mandarine,  for  the  growth  of  which  the  Maltese  Islands 
have  so  long  been  famous,  will  be  either  exterminated  or  will  be  cultivated  only  as 
curiosities.  It  is,  I  believe,  a  well  known  fact  that  the  orange,  mandarine,  lemon, 
fig,  nectarine,  olive,  apricot,  apple,  pear,  grape — in  fact  all  fruit  and  most  kinds 
of  vegetables  grown  in  these  islands  are  at  present  affected  with  a  variety  of  dis- 
eases that  not  only  attack  the  fruit,  but  also  devitalize  the  tree  to  such  an  extent 
as  to  jeopardise  its  very  existence.  The  Malta  orange  is  at  the  present  time  affec- 
ted with  four  different  kinds  of  diseases.  .  .  .  Another  foe,  which  is 
of  an  even  more  deadly  character,  is  the  beetle  cerambyx,  which,  while  in  the 
caterpillar  stage,  bores  its  way  into  the  heart  of  the  trunk  of  the  nespola  and  the 
apple  trees,  and  causes  them  to  rapidly  decay.  But  it  is  not  the  fruit  gardens 
alone  that  have  been  invaded  by  insect  pests."  The  pea  crop  of  last  year  was  seri- 
ously diminished  by  the  attacks  of  a  worm  called  the  "  cadell,"  and  of  an  aphis 
called  the  "  blanqueta."  .  .  .  The  wheat,  tae  sulla,  the  cotton — the  staple 
productions  of  the  Malta  soil— all  have  insect  foes  in  numbers  that  are  out  of  all 
proportion  to  the  area  of  the  districts  in  which  the  crops  are  grown.  To  what  are 
we  to  attribute  this  invasion  of  insect  pests?" 


*'  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS."    43 

(Comparatively  tiny  deforested  and  therefore  "devitalized"  Malta 
standing  about  midway  between  the  mighty  African  Sahara  desert,  and  de- 
forested Europe  and  Turkey,  may  be  likened  umo  a  much  enfeebled 
man  who,  from  force  of  circumstances  is  compelled  to  reside  continuous- 
ly within  an  imperceptibly  diseased  atmosphere  generated  from  pestifer- 
ous environments,  and  whose  nickering  vitality  has  been  sustained  to  its 
utmost  limit  by  means  of  artificial  stimulants  and  legislative  enactments. 
It  should  now  be  evident  from  a  careful  perusal  of  this  paper  that  the 
sensible  suggestion  herein  quoted  from  the  New  York  Herald  concerning 
the  reclaimation  of  Gallilee  by  the  restoration  of  her  forest-lunga  —  and, 
let  me  add,  her  refreshing  inland  lakes,  coupled  with  a  genuine  desire 
for  our  neighbor's  welfare,  equally  applies  to  the  earth  as  a  whole,  and 
especially  to  Malta.  Then,  and  not  till  then,  will  disease  insect  laden 
whirlwinds  cease  to  scatter  their  retributive  hosts  over  the  earth's  sur- 
face, as  also  will  the  reign  of  death-dealing  cyclones,  torrental  floods, 
protracted  droughts,  blizzards  and  general  pestilence  be  dethroned. 
Just  think  of  the  Mediterranean  flour-moth  pest  now  in  California  !) 

Though  having  selected  such  reports  of  destructive  cyclones  as  apeared 
to  furnish  ample  evidence  in  support  of  my  contention  re  the  costly  fruits 
from  wholesale  forest  destruction,  I  must  quote  a  little  further  from  an 
article  which  appeared  in  the  S.  F.  Chronicle  of  April  21st,  1893,  under  the 
heading:  —  "  Fatal  work  of  a  Southern  Cyclone,"  which  as  said  article  states 
—  "  scattered  desolation  through  two  counties  of  southern  Mississippi:  —  " 

"  Meridian  (Mies.),  April  20—  Clarke  and  Jasper  counties  of  this  State  suffered 
from  a  cyclone  last  night  at  7  o'clock,  more  destructive  to  human  life  and  more 
serious  in  its  damage  to  property  than  the  one  three  weeks  ago.  It  followed  almost 
the  track  of  its  predecessor.  Over  forty  people  were  killed  and  nearly  two  hundred 
were  more  or  less  injured.  These  figures  may  be  increased  when  all  the  stricken 
districts  are  heard  from.  The  destruction  of  property  will  amount  to  hundreds  of 
thousands.  Entire  neighborhoods  have  been  literally  swept  off  the  face  of  the  earth. 

"  The  cyclones  path  was  through  a  vast  pine  forest,  broken  here  and  there  by 
farms  Huge  trees  were  uprooted  and  carried  for  long  distances.  Near  the  town 
of  Pachuta  lived  the  family  of  William  Parton,  consisting  of  himself,  his  wife  and 
three  children.  Their  bodies,  except  that  of  the  youngest  child  were  picked  up 
over  a  mile  away,  mangled  and  entirely  nude.  Their,  brains  had  been  dashed  out. 
The  voungest  child  had  a  marvelous  escape.  It  was  found  half  a  mile  from  its  home 
early  this  morning,  uninjured  and  crying  piteously  for  its  mother. 

"William  Fisher,  his  mother,  his  wife  and  their  five  children  were  blown  away, 
and  search  parties  have  been  out  all  day,  but  none  of  the  bodies  has  been  recovered. 
A  child  of  Sim  McGowan  was  found  dead  on  a  tree  top  a  mile  from  its  home.  .    . 
Every  messenger  from  the  remote  districts  brings  a  tale  of  suffering  and  death.    The 
wind  is  still  high  to-day,  and  as  each  cloud  ha8  appeared  the  people  have  huddled 

t0?<  Th^  c^cTone'came  'from  the  southwest  and  traveled  in  a  straight  line  until  it 
reached  Quitman.    There  its  course  ^^J^ 
direction  for  three  miles  it  took  another  turn  eastward." 


Th1%?SW«  ^sue)  had  also  the  following  dispatches:- 
"MILWAUKEE  April  20  —Twenty-one  men  drowned,  one  vessel  ashore  and  the 
life  sav££  cfew  'covered  with  dory  are  among  the  results  of  last  night  s  terrible 

•^SSTiSf  5£S2*!E^MM  SftSS  *  «* 

State  bm  that  tmouut  of  snow  fell  last  night  and  to  day.    In  some  parts  of  Mm- 


44          "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS.'5 

nesota,  the  average  being  over  a  foot,  heavy  rain  preceded  the  snow    .     .     falling 
steadily  this  afternoon,  up  to  which  time  fifteen  inches  had  fallen." 

SOME  CAPITALISTIC  AND   HYGIENIC  CONSEQUENCES. 

Apart  from  the  terribly  fierce  results  to  local  human  life  and  property 
from  deforestation  throughout  the  once  extensive  hog  and  potato  raising, 
Mississippi  Valley,  the  whole  populace  of  America  are  now  being  made  to 
roughly  share  in  the  trouble  from  lack  of  those  necessary  food  supplies. 
I  am  assured  that  until  a  few  years  ago  Mississippi  Valley  hog  farmers 
derived  handsome  returns  by  disposing  of  their  live  hogs  at  from  four 
cents  to  five  cents  per  pound  in  large  flocks,  and  that  now,  because  of  the 
intense  cold,  cyclones,  torrental  floods  and  otherwise  general  unreliability 
of  the  seasons,  the  rearing  of  hogs  and  root  crops  have  become  almost  im- 
possible, and  in  consequence  pork  cuiers  have  to  pay  from  seven  cents  to 
eight  cents  per  pound  for  the  shortage  supplies  they  can  procure.  I  am 
also  assured  that  from  said  cause  and  a  recently  developed  swine  disease 
known  as  "  the  hog  cholera  pest"  the  output  from  Chicago,  Milwaukee 
and  elsewhere  is  now  annually  reduced  by  millions  of  carcases.  Some 
philosophers  may  suppose  that  this  is  but  a  trifling  matter  scarcely  worth 
noticing,  but  many  others  will  doubtless  be  disposed  to  think  otherwise, 
and  especially  on  reflecting  over  the  fact  that  sixty-three  millions  of 
American  people  who  have  been  educated  to  the  almost  daily  consumption 
of  pork  in  some  form,  besides  many  millions  elsewhere  who  look  to  the 
United  States  for  their  pork  supplies,  have  now  to  pay  at  least  twenty-five 
per  cent  more  than  heretofore  for  that  commodity  and  in  all  probability 
for  a  much  less  nutricious  article  containing  possibly,  more  or  less  disease 
germs.  On  the  new  disease  known  as  "  hog  cholera"  the  New  York  Home- 
stead of  April  20th,  1893,  writes  as  follows:— 

"  There  is  no  reliable  remedy.  Prevention  is  the  one  course  to  be  pursued  .  .  . 
In  buying  fresh  hogs  avoid  all  public  stock  yards,  and  railroad  cars  or  other  public 
conveyances.  Buy  from  country  herds  where  you  know  there  has  been  no  sickness" 
— (a  now  very  difficult  task) — 

And  concerning  the  terrible  disease  so  common  to  hog  flesh,  namely 
"  trichinae"  the  S.  F.  Examiner  of  March  22nd,  1893,  writes:— 

"  There  are  at  the  German  Hospital  in  this  city,  three  patients  whose  complaint 
is  unique  in  the  experience  of  most  of  the  local  medical  practitioners.  They  are 
William  Hunmsand  John  and  Walter  Nagel,  St.  Helena  farmers,  who  were  brought 
from  their  Napa  home  to  the  hospital  on  Fourteenth  and  Noe  streets,  about  a  week 
ago.  The  three  Germans  are  afflicted  with  trichiniasi?,  and  it  commences  to  look 
as  though  the  trouble  would  cost  Walter  Nagel  his  life.  .  .  Hunius  and  the 
Nagles  owe  their  affliction  to  pork  infested  with  trichinae.  A.  few  days  before  they 
were  brought  to  the  hospital  they  ate  some  sausages  containing  raw  pork,  and  a 
microscopical  examination  of  sections  of  the  hog  from  which  the  pork  was  taken  has 
shown  conclusively  that  the  animal  contained  myriads  of  trichinae." 

Concerning  the  potato  failure  the  S.  F.  Evening  Post  of  April  28th  makes 
the  following  comments: — 

'.'  From  present  appearances  there  will  be  a  potato  famine  in  California  this  year, 
or,  in  any  event,  high  prices  will  rule,  even  if  a  full  supply  is  obtained  from  outside 
quarters.  Stocks  are  lighter  than  they  have  been  before  for  many  years,  and  the 
advance  in  value  has  brought  in  shipments  from  the  E-ist  as  far  back  as  Wisconsin. 
There  are  few  dealers  here  who  can  recall  another  instance  of  the  kind,  although 
for  years  past  Utah  and  Nevada  have  been  drawn  upon  to  help  out  at  times. 

The  shipment  referred  to  came  to  hand  Wednesday  from  Waupacca,  and  as  high 


"  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS."    45 

as  $2.10  was  paid  for  choice  lots.  They  were  all  of  the  Burbank  variety.  Another 
carload  is  expected  to  arrive  and  a  higher  rate  is  bid  for  them.  From  all  accounts 
this  will  be  a  very  bad  year  for  California  potatoes,  and  the  crop  will  amount  to  little 
over  one-half  of  that  which  is  usually  raised.  The  prolonged  rains  interfered  with 
the  planting  and  did  not  benefit  the  crop  put  in  early  in  the  year." 

The  same  issue  of  the  Post  contains  the  following  doleful  dispatch: — 

POOR  CROP  OUTLOOK. 

"ST.  PAUL,  April  27.— The  farmers  of  Minnesota  and  the  Dakotag  are  pretty 
nearly  discouraged  over  the  outlook  for  crops.  Not  an  acre  of  grain  has  been  sown 
in  North  Dakota,  nor  at  any  point  in  Minnesota  north  of  St.  Cloud,  and  there  is  no 
prospect  that  any  will  be  sown  in  the  next  ten  days.  It  began  snowing  Wednesday 
and  an  average  of  eighteen  inches  fell  in  twenty- four  hours.  Since  that  date  it  has 
rained  almost  continuously  and  yesterday  morning  it  again  began  snowing  and  the 
fall  was  steady  all  day  all  the  way  west  from  St.  Paul  to  Dickinson,  N.  D.  In 
northern  Minnesota,  around  Crookston,  Fisher  and  many  other  Red  river  points, 
thousands  of  acres  have  been  converted  into  lakes  by  overflowing  streams,  and  all 
talk  of  putting  in  a  crop  is  out  of  the  question." 

CALIFORNIA'S  DEFORESTING  CONTRIBUTION. 

The  S.  F.  Chronicle  of  April  23rd,  1893,  amongst  its  Columbian  Ex- 
position articles  was  the  following: — 

"  The  lumber  industry  is  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  important  branches  of  trade 
in  California,  and  antidates  the  admission  of  the  State  into  the  Union.  The  manu- 
facture of  lumber  in  California  can  be  traced  back  as  far  as  1838.  .  .  The  ex- 
ports of  lumber  from  San  Francisco  by  sea  (alone)  to  all  countries  dating  from  1870 
have  been  as  follows: — 

TEAKS  FEET  VALUE 

1070  ...  .13,679,652 $245,216 

187l"          ..17,590,854 312,570 

1872"  .  16,517,171 309,325 

1873"          ..17,415,287 350,024 

1874"  .  9,036,799 176,956 

1875"     '.".'.' 10,024,189 202,912 

1876'  .10,781,220 199,894 

1877"          ..13,874,327 267,333 

1878"  ..14,596,422 289,374 

1879'....: 16,501,075 316,485 

1880 14,370,796 307,006 

1881       18,269,157 393,283 

iiil:  :       :::SM:::H:::::i::^|g 

1884 20,231,584 489,642 

1885  ....19,266,070 413'93j? 

1886.': 15,352,649 294,403 

1887 15,911,000 428,008 

1888 22,535,740 597,230 

1889 18,877,570 457,214 

1890 19,169,980 448,074 

1891 19,931,521 470,345 

1892 21,332,560 495,572 

When  we  couple  to  the  above  the  many  millions  of  feet  that  have  been 
used  during  the  said  periods  in  and  around  California  for  mining ;  opera- 
tions, building  and  repairing,  domestic  consumption,  w harfs,  jettie ^  rail- 
way sleepers  agndothe?woodworks,  foresees  far* ^•^*™*$* 


bridges,  etc.,  minus  any  commentate  replenishing  of  fi 

we  should  not  now  be  surprised  with  existing  results  to  climate,  etc. 


46 

DANGEROUS   EXPERIMENTS. 

(From  the  Toronto  Weekly  Globe  of  March  llth,  1891.) 

"  Imagine  an  application  of  poison  spray  to  a  dying  man  to  restore  him  to 
a  state  of  primal  health  I" 

OUR  FRUIT  TREE  ENEMIES. 

[By  B.  G.I 
(Ancona,  March  5th,  1891.) 

"Perhaps  I  may  be  allowed  to  say  for  the  immediate  information  of  some  who 
have  come  to  look  upon  spraying  as  an  essentially  fundamental  principle  of  fruit- 
growing that  in  reality  it  is  not  so.  If  this  was  admitted  then  what  would  become 
of  an  industry  of  such  immense  growing  importance  to  the  great  interests  of  this 
great  country.  Why,  it  would  simply  become  extinct,  and  that  in  less  time  than  it 
would  take  to  grow  the  trees.  If  men  were  convinced  that  they  would  be  compelled 
to  supply  a  continued  spray  of  liquid  poison  to  the  whole  mass  of  their  fruit  trees, 
or  to  any  considerable  part  of  them,  before  they  could  be  sure  that  anything  could 
be  gathered  from  them  for  their  own  or  others'  use,  what  would  they  do  ?  Would 
they  plant  fruit  trees  at  all  ?  Not  under  ordinary  circumstances. 

"  Just  think  for  a  moment  what  this  thing  in  its  minutia  means.  It  means  in 
the  first  place  that  every  fruitgrower,  before  he  can  ever  indulge  in  the  fond  hope 
to  see  beautiful  bright  red  apples  or  rich,  luscious  golden  plums  on  those  trees,  must 
keep  on  hand  a  heavy  stock  of  poisons  in  the  form  of  London  purple  or  Paris  green, 
articles  that  should  never  be  seen  or  thought  of  in  connection  with  an  orchard  or  a 
fruit  garden,  much  less  to  be  used  in  them.  It  means  further,  that  a  heavy  and 
expensive  paraphernalia,  consisting  of  implements  and  machinery  of  various  forms 
and  designs  be  kept  always  on  hand  for  the  manufacture,  preservation  and  appli- 
cation of  this  essential  liquid  poison  many  timea  during  the  season  to  each  and 
several  of  those  trees.  It  means,  still  further,  the  possession  and  use  of  the  con- 
stant, watchful,  scientific  eye;  the  eye,  indeed,  of  the  practised  expert  and  the  close 
observer  of  phenomena  to  discern  just  the  exact  time  when  to  apply  those  poisons, 
some  for  insects  and  some  for  fungus,  so  as  to  be  most  effectual  and  to  be  ever  ready 
just  at  the  proper  moment  to  apply  them.  It  means,  finally,  an  immense  amount 
of  valuable  time  and  of  persevering  attention  and  industry,  a  large  outlay  of  ex- 
penses and  a  display  of  talent  and  business  tact  in  this  particular  line  of  work  that 
are  granted  to  the  favored  few. 

"  But  it  means,  again,  far  more  than  all  this  and  something  that  involves  in  its 
conception  an  immense  amount  of  valuable  as  well  as  of  invaluable  life  to  the  in- 
sect and  animal.  We  all  know  full  well,  and  some  of  us  to  our  sorrow,  how  very 
dangerous  these  deadly  poisons  are,  not  only  to  handle,  but  to  anything  with  which 
they  may  come  in  contact.  In  spraying  trees  either  for  fungus  or  insects  it  must 
be  done  in  early  summer  time  when  the  most  plentiful  of  insects  of  all  classes,  both 
friendly  and  unfriendly,  are  on  the  move  in  beautiful  activity.  To  hastily  conclude 
that  the  whole  brood  of  them  are  necessarily  enemies  and  ought  to  be  poisoned  (in- 
cluding bees)  is  rash,  false  and  ruinous  in  the  extreme  to  the  best  interests  of  this 
country  and  its  own  population;  and  so,  if  we  go  at  this  business  on  a  systematic 
scale  we  shall  find  it  out  to  our  deepest  chagrin  and  regret.  It  will  be  quite  safe  to 
say  that  many  of  our  most  valued  friends,  as  well  as  our  most  virulent  enemies,  will 
be  thus  destroyed  by  coming  in  contact  with  poisoned  fruit  trees  at  this  early  period 
of  the  year.  (This  equally  applies  to  any  fumigating  process). 

"  But  again,  a  liberal  application  of  these  deadly  ingredients  to  our  fruit  trees 
during  the  early  summer  means  leaving  much  of  their  force  and  deadly  power  over 
and  about  the  fiuits  themselves,  some  of  which  sticking  undiasolved  and  visible 
about  the  cavity,  and  some  considerable  of  it  adhering  to  the  calix  of  the  eye.  These 
doctored  fruits  coming  into  the  hands  of  young  eager,  incautious  children,  and 
animals,  are  quickly  devoured  holos-bolos  and  without  a  thought  of  danger  until  a 
pain  seizes  them  in  the  stomach  and  bowels,  and  the  foundation  of  deadly  disease  is 
firmly  laid  in  the  system,  but  the  secret  potent  cause  is  never  once  suspected.  Who 
would  like  willingly  and  knowingly  to  supply  an  article  like  this  so  dire  in  its  effect 


"  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS."    47 

to  the  young  and  rising  generation,  the  hope  and  confidence  of  this  country?  Spray- 
ing fruit  trees  in  orchards  and  gardens  means  danger  of  a  probable  contact  with 
other  plants  and  fruits  in  the  near  neighborhood,  greatly  endangering  their  use, 
bnt  the  most  common  form  of  danger  is  to  the  domestic  cow  or  the  sheep  that  is 
allowed  to  graze  upon  the  tender  grass  or  herb  found  growing  in  those  gardens  or 
orchards.  This  grass  is  as  surely  and  certainly  doctored  as  these  trees  themselves 
are,  and  the  danger  of  using  it  is  as  virulent  and  deathly.  In  the  face  of  all  these 
considerations,  considerations  of  immense  importance  and  frought  with  serious  con- 
sequences to  us,  we  must  certainly  conclude  that  to  rely  upon  the  constant  use  of 
tnese  deadly  poisons  for  our  fruit  delicacies  is  not,  to  say  the  least,  a  safe  thing  to 
do. 

"Let  us  now  for  a  moment  consider  the  case  as  "it  stands  in  respect  to  fungus" 
— (results  from  atmospheric  putridity).  "  What  is  fungus?  Well,  it  is  in  the  first 
place,  a  sure  and  certain  indication  of  disease  and  impaired  vitality,  or  bad 
health,  if  you  please.  It  is  further  an  indication,  and  infallible  sign  of  improper 
treatment  and  bad  management  on  the  part  of  the  orchardist,  or  of  wet  worn-out 
or  unsuitable  soils  and  locations.  But  it  may  most  likely  of  all  be  a  sure  and  cer- 
tain indication  of  an  absolute  worn-out  or  exhausted  variety.  This  being  the  case, 
what  is  the  most  obvious  and  reasonable  thing  to  be  done  ?  Run  to  the  poison  bar- 
rel ?  Not  by  any  means  for  relief  will  not  certainly  be  found  in  this  line.  Imagine 
an  application  of  poison  spray  to  a  dying  man  to  restore  him  to  a  state  of  primal 
health!  A  far  more  rational  procedure  would  be  to  call  in  the  physician,  seriously 
consider  the  whole  matter  and  carefully  learn  how  the  case  stands." 

CONCLUSION. 

The  law  of  attraction  briefly  referred  to  at  the  commencement  of  this 
treatise,  is  unceasing  in  its  operations  through  the  whole  realm  of  nature 
and  especially  so  with  regard  to  the  formation  of  aireal  reservoirs  i.  e.  rain 
storin^  clouds,  by  evaporation  at  the  tropics  and  elsewhere  by  the  sun's 
agency,  as  also  in  the  equitable  distribution  of  their  migratory  contents 
over  the  earth's  surface  as  beneficent  fertilizing  aids  to  mankind,  by  the 
attractive  power  of  living  forests,  and,  had  we  lived  for  each  other's  un- 
stinted happiness  as  was  decreed  by  the  Allwise  Creator,  instead  of  for 
self  as  we  determined  on,  the  existing  meteorologic  troubles  would  be  un- 
known— clouds  would  then  have  moved  over  the  earth's  surface  in  detached 
rhymic  order  yielding  up  their  refreshing  treasures  at  the  attractive  invita- 
tions of  venerated  forests  to  enrich  the  many  intervening  plains,  which 
plains  by  such  means  would  in  return  have  yielded  abundance  of  every 
necessary  provender  for  man  and  beast  whilst  the  forests  could  readily  be 
made  to  abound  with  the  choicest  of  fruits  and  fragrant  flowers.  Now,  the 
whole  atmospheric  machinery  is  "  out  of  joint"  and  hence  our  increasing 
troubles.  The  sun  still  faithfully  performs  its  moisture  attracting 
functions,  but  not  so  the  once  numerous  forests  as  they  are  now  nearly  a 
exterminated;  leaving  the  naked  earth  to  generate  cyclone  and  disease 
formm*  air,  whilst  the  over-loaded  clouds  reel  hither  and  thither  in  an 
erraticBmanner-frequently  uniting  over  a  more  attractive  region  of  the 
earth,  there  meteorologically  impelled  to  shower  down  their  contents ,m 
devastating  avalanches,  leaving  other  parts  to  suffer  ^^^ 
droughts  and  consequent  famines,  etc.,  as  the  following  illustrates. 


48 


RUINOUS   CONTRASTS. 


From  the  San  Francisco    Chronicle,  MELBOURNE,  (Australia),  Argus,  Jan. 

April  30,  1893.  7,  1893.—"  The  weather  is  very  dry  and 

THE  MISSISSIPPI  BISING.-LANDS  COVERED  Prf  ent  Outl9°k  for  the  C.°ming  Vintage  is 

ON  THE  MISSOURI  AND  ILLINOIS  SIDES.  not*°  Pro™18inS  as  Previous  years,  black 

/TUX          -i  ™     m,       ••  spot  and  odium  have  made  their  appeai- 

ALTON    (111.),  April  29.-The  danger  a^ce  in  the  vineyards."  (a  six  months 

line  for  the  stage  of   water  has  been  tlr0uaht) 
passed,  and  those  who  have  interests  at 

stake  are  watching  the  water  creep  up  to  S.  F.  Chronicle,  April  30,  1893. 
and  over  their    possessions.      Missouri 

points  are  flooded       Unless  a  fall  soon  ^4NAMA'  .^Pnl  ??--The  government 

sets  in  great  damage  will  follow.  continues  with  unabated  effort  to  combat 

QUINCY,   (111.),  April  29.-The    most  the  terrible  famine  that  for  sometime 

serious  hailstorm  known  for  years  struck  haf.  been  raging   throughout  the  Oauca 

Quincy  and  this  vicinity  and  did  much  valle/  and  the  J10,1™1"8  ,ot  whlc^  were  re- 

damage  to  fruit  and  other  trees.    Win-  cently  augmented  by  the  eruption  of  the 

dows  and  conservatories  were  smashed  Sotora  volcano  and  the  consequent  dam- 

all  over  town.    The  river  is  rising  rapid  ™in?  UP  of  the  Principal  rivers  of  the 

ly  and  a  repetition  of  last  year's  flood  is  dlstnct- 

feared.  ODESSA,     April    29.—  The    abnormal 

HAIL  STORM  IN  ILLINOIS.  weather  continues.    The  winter  wheat 

ALTON,   (111.),   April  29.  —  During  last  crop  in  the  southern  provinces  has  been 

night  this  vicinity  was  visited  by  a  hail-  almost  destroyed  by  the  cold.  Food  prices 

storm  the  like  of  which  was  never  equaled  are  rising  and  famine  threatens.      The 

around  here.  All  vegetation  was  literally  Government  will  probably  be  compelled 

torn  to  pieces.  The  Missouri,  Kansas  and  to  revive  the  embargo  on  grain. 

Eastern  tracks  were  greatly  damaged.  BERLIN,  April  29.-Farmers  are  wail- 

The  loss  will  foot  up  in  the  thousands.  ing  over  the  fack  of  rain.    The  COUntry 

From   the  San  Francisco  Examiner,  is  baked  and  unless  a  change  occurs  soon 

April  30,  1893.  crops  will  be  damaged  and  we  shall  have 

[Special  to  the  EXAMINER.]  a  vegetable  famine.  The  seeds  now  sown 

DALLAS,    (Tex.),    April    29.—  It   was  are.  bu1rne(LuP-,  0,S?er  lndas.tr;les    are 

learned  from  passengers  on  the    east-  fenously  affected     The  proprietor  of  a 

bound   train  this  evening   of  the  des-  lar§e  dye  works  says  the  air  is  so  dry  he 

tructionby  a  cyclone  of  Cisco,  in  this  cannot  gel  colors  to  toke.    For  the  same 

State,  during  last  night.     There  are  not  reason,   J™r^n,  J?    ™lvet  Act?-rjf 

more  than  twenty-five  or  thirty  houses  ar?un(*  Chefield  find  the  greatest  diffi- 

left  standing,  and  up  to  the  time  the  train  5ultv,  m  cutting   silks,  which    become 

passed,   about  2  o'clock  this  afternoon,  brittle,  owing  to  the  absence  of  moisture. 


30>  1893« 
twelve  more  persons  missing.  [Special  to  the  EXAMINER.] 

APPEALS  FOR  AID.  LONDON,  April  29.—  The  extraordinary 

Ihe  following  telegram  was  also  weather  continues  to  be  the  one  vital  sub- 
received  by  Mayor  Levy  from  Cisco:  ject  of  conversation.  For  fifty-seven  days 

"Cisco  has  been  destroyed  by  the  most  now  there  has  been  no  appreciable  rain- 
destructive  cyclone  that  ever  visited  fall  in  and  about  London.  Farmers  are 
Texas.  More  than  four-fifths  of  the  complaining  that  a  few  more  days  of 
people  are  without  shelter.  There  were  drought  means  ruin  for  them.  All  over 
many  killed  and  wounded.  Help  is  the  continent,  from  Italy  nortnward,  the 
needed  to  bury  the  dead,  take  care  of  the  same  cry  is  going  up  from  vineyard  and 
wounded  and  relieve  those  who  lost  every-  orchard  and  farm.  The  only  people  not 
thing."  complaining  are  some  of  the  large  dry 

After  the  cyclone  passed  much  of  the  goods  houses.  They  say  the  pleasant 
wreckage  was  burned,  having  caught  fire  weather  has  felmost  doubled  their  eales 
from  overturned  stoves.  It  is  therefore  and  that  the  season  has  been  the  most 
probable  that  most  of  the  missing,  about  a  profitable  known  in  a  score  of  years,  but 
score,  have  been  burned  to  death  or  their  the  price  of  vegetables  all  over  Europe 


"  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THB  NATIONS."    49 

dead  bodies  cremated.    Many  streets  are  keeps  going  up.    This  heat  fe  just  what 

impassable  on  foot     Physicians  estimate  the  cholera  microbe  wants,  and  gradually 

that  no  ess  than  200  are  injured,  of  whom  the  line  of  plague  is  advancing  on  the 

J  JS  nnneAnoThe  ProPerty  loss  Wl11  ex'  great  cities.     The  cholera  is  practically 

!t>4UUO,000.  epidemic  in  Normandy. 

REMEDY. 

An  early  whole-hearted  international  combine  to  restore  and  righteous- 
ly protect  the  planet's  forests,  and  thereby  reinspire  the  long  estranged 
harmony  of  nature  to  unite  in  perpetually  singing  through  her  manifold 
works:  "  Glory  to  God  on  high  and  peace  on  earth  to  men  of  good 
will. 


PERSONAL. 

FROM    THE    HON.     MINISTER    OF    AGRICULTURE,     NEW    SOUTH    WALES, 

AUSTRALIA. 

SYDNEY,  Castlereigh  Street,  January  22nd,  1892. 
MR.  JAS.  MCLEAN: 

Dear  Sir— I  am  glad  to  hear  that  you  intend  proceeding  to  the  United 
States  on  an  important  mission.  The  vast  experience  which  you  possess  regarding 
our  various  resources  of  wealth,  combined  with  your  knowledge  of  the  population, 
will  materially  assist  you  on  your  tour,  and  if  you  are  encouraged  by  a  reciprocity 
of  feeling,  your  trip  may  be  profitably  utilized  and  prove  a  valuable  factor  in  the 
progress  of  the  colonies.  I  trust  that  you  shall  have  an  enjoyable  and  successful 
voyage,  and  that  you  may  ere  long  be  again  amongst  us,  manifesting  your  general 
interest  in  the  cause  of  settlement.  Yours  faithfully. 

JAMES  N.  BRUNKER. 


(From  the  San  Francisco  Examiner,  April  10,  1892  ) 

"Under  the  heading  of  "  Australian  Parasites"  we  noticed  on  the  3d  ultimo, 
the  arrival  in  San  Francisco  of  Inspector  James  McLean  from  Australia,  by  the 
steamship  Mariposa,  on  his  way  to  Washington,  D.  C.,  in  order  to  place  a  valu- 
able insect  pest  eradicating  discovery  before  our  agricultural  authorities.  This 
discovery  Mr.  McLean  by  great  research  made  whilst  employed  as  a  forest  and 
settlement  inspecting  officer,  which  position  he  held  for  many  years  under  an 
Australian  Government.  It  is  now  our  pleasant  duty  to  further  notice  that  Mr. 
McLean  did  not  confine  his  researches  to  the  domain  of  fruit-destroying  insect 
pests  entirely,  but  to  the  tracing  of  cause  and  effect  with  regard  to  the  laws  of 
health  and  disease  in  the  "human  plant"  as  well,  and  especially  relating  to  the 
terrible  death-dealing  disease  known  as  phthisis  or  consumption.  Mr.  McLean, 
who  studied  medicine  in  Scotland  during  his  early  years,  was  busily  experimenting 
with  a  preparation  from  his  insect-destroying  specific  on  sundry  consumptives,  with 
marvelous  results,  in  Australia,  contemporaneously  with  Dr.  Koch  of  Berlin. 

"  On  interviewing  Mr.  McLean  at  his  hotel,  he  readily  plunged  into  the  whole 
question  relating  to  health  and  disease  in  plant  and  man  with  an  earnestness  char- 
acteristic of  a  genuine,  experienced  Scotchman. 

"  Why  do  you  so  pointedly  couple  plants  and  men  together  with  reference  to 
health  and  disease  ?"  said  the  reporter. 

"Simply  because  the  one  law  governs  the  welfare  of  both,  and  man  is  but  a 
migratory  plant,  subject  to  decay,  disease  and  death,  from  precisely  similar  condi- 
tions, the  only  apparent  difference  being  in  the  methods  by  which  plants  and  men 
are  nourished  from  the  soil  and  atmosphere.  Humanity,  in  Scripture,  is  con- 
stantly compared  with  a  plant  or  tree,  and  we  know  that  He  who  speaks  through 
the  Scriptures  is  the  Creator  of  both,  and  knows  far  better  than  human  wisdom  can 


50    "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS." 

comprehend  the  aptitude  of  the  comparison.  More  than  this,  it  cannot  be  too 
often  said  that  the  tree  has  been  placed  before  us  in  all  it  stages  of  construction 
throughout  countless  centuries  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  serve  as  a  model  and 
symbol  of  the  human  tree.  At  the  time  when  the  embryo  tree,  or  germ,  first  be- 
comes visible  with  the  aid  of  a  powerful  microscope,  it  appears  as  a  little  bag  sur- 
rounded by  the  far  larger  bulu:  of  starch  or  gluten,  which  is  to  form  its  food  in  its 
earlier  stages,  and  which  we  call  the  seed.  The  seed  is  in  fact  a  bag  of  food  which 
is  to  form  the  sustenance  of  the  baby  tree  in  its  center — that  embryo  tree  appear- 
ing as  yet  merely  in  the  form  of  a  soft  egg-like  bag  or  vegetable  cell.  This  cell  is 
the  progenitor  of  the  tree,  which  is  composed  of  innumerable  cells  of  similar  ap- 
pearance built  upon  and  joined  to  one  another  like  stones  in  the  wall  of  a  house. 
The  first  cell,  the  "Adam  and  Eve  in  one  flesh,"  of  the  vegetable  world  forms 
within  itself  two  other  cells,  dividing  itself  into  chambers  by  a  partition,  and  each 
of  these  chambers  has  the  same  power  of  reproduction  as  the  first  parent,  out  of 
whose  substance  they  are  made.  Then  this  first  generation  of  two  beings  begin 
each  to  subdivide  into  a  second  generation  of  three  or  four  baby  cells,  which  form 
partitions  and  stand  upon  one  another  in  close  bond  as  a  second  course  of  living 
stones.  These  each  bring  forth  their  vegetable  children,  which  take  their  ap- 
pointed places,  each  by  subdivision,  in  the  living  structure.  The  third  genera- 
tion, the  third  course  in  the  building  of  the  vegetable  house,  is  filling  up  the  little 
trunk  and  root  of  the  young  tender  tree,  as  yet  almost  shapeless  to  the  human  eye 
in  its  simplicity.  But  successive  generations  of  these  progressive  subdivisions  and 
their  growth  into  their  appointed  size  and  station  gradually  reveal  the  shape  and 
character  of  that  race  of  vegetable  cells  which  is  the  progeny  of  the  first  parent, 
and  which  forma  the  growing  tree. 

"The  blind  man  in  the  parable  whom  Jesus  is  represented  to  have  restored  to 
spiritual  sight  could  see  '  men  as  trees  walking.'  The  anatomist  well  knows  that 
the  circulatory  system  of  veins  and  arteries  is  like  a  tree,  whose  sap  is  blood,  branch- 
ing from  the  heart  to  the  lungs  and  skin,  and  rooted  in  the  stomach  and  intestines. 
The  skeleton  is  like  a  tree,  of  which  the  spinal  cord  is  the  trunk,  the  ribs  and  arms 
and  head  being  branches,  and  the  legs  the  roots.  The  human  muscles  are  as  fibers 
of  the  tree,  which,  as  in  the  plant,  brace  it,  and  bend  it  to  the  required  directions. 
The  windpipe  is  the  trunk  of  the  tree,  whose  sap  and  nourishment  are  air,  whose 
root  is  in  the  nostrils,  and  whose  branches  are  the  bronchial  tubes,  terminating  in 
that  network  of  ever-moving  twigs  and  leaves  called  lungs,  and  bringing  the  air  of 
heaven  to  nourish  *»nd  purify  the  leaves  and  twigs  of  the  venous  tree,  which  is  in- 
terlaced with  it.  Tbe  skin  is  the  mutual  leaf  surface  of  another  pair  of  conjoined 
trees,  arterial  and  venous,  each  based  in  different  portions  of  the  heart;  and  the  leaf 
surface  of  the  outer  skin  exposes  the  sap  of  these  two  trees  to  the  necessary  action 
of  the  atmosphere.  The  nervous  system  is  like  an  inverted  tree  whose  root  is  in  the 
brain,  whose  trunk  is  in  the  spinal  cord,  and  which  ramifies  into  every  portion  of 
the  human  body,  terminating  outwardly  in  myriads  of  fine  nerve  twigs  in  the  out- 
spread foliage  of  the  skin.  It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  outward  skin  represents  the 
aborescence  and  foliage  of  the  osseous,  arterial,  venous,  and  nervous  trees  which 
make  up  the  greater  portion  of  the  human  frame— in  fact,  man  is  a  compound  tree, 
exposing  foliage  at  every  part  to  the  action  of  the  air  and  light  and  warmeth.  And 
the  lungs  also  are  like  foliage  of  a  more  delicate  kind,  to  expose  the  interior  rami- 
fications of  the  arterial  and  venous  trees  to  the  action  of  the  ever- flowing,  ever- 
ebbing  air.  In  the  leaves  of  plants  are  innumerable  little  pores  or  mouths  which 
perspire  the  surplus  moisture  of  the  sap  or  plant  blood,  which  exhale  oxygen  and 
inhale  carbonic  acid  gas  from  the  air.  In  the  foliage  of  the  human  skin  are  simi- 
lar pores  or  mouths  which  perspire  the  surplus  moisture  of  the  human  blood  and 
respire  the  gases  of  the  air  in  much  the  same  manner  as  the  leaves  of  plants.  And 
as  the  leaves  of  plants  fulfill  their  term  of  office  and  then  die  and  fall  upon  the 
earth,  so  fall  the  leaves  or  scales  of  the  human  skin  foliage  when  their  work  is  done. 
And  as  the  next  crop  of  leaves  comes  upon  the  plant  to  take  up  the  busy  work  in 
the  ensuing  season,  so  comes  the  young  growth  of  skin  leaves  upon  the  human  tree 
to  fulfill  their  necessary  functions. 

"  Who  can  look  upon  these  things,"  continued  Mr.  McLean,  "although  not  one- 
hundredth  part  of  the  parallel  between  men  and  trees  has  yet  been  drawn,  and 
fail  to  to  understand  what  trees  composed  the  Garden  of  Eden,  among  which  God 


"  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS."    51 

walked,  and  what  trees  are  referred  to  in  Ezekiel,  where  it  is  said  that  no  tree  in 
the  garden  of  God  was  like  unto  him  in  his  beauty,  so  that  all  the  trees  of  Eden 
that  were  in  the  garden  of  God  envied  him?  And  how  is  it  possible  to  imagine 
that  the  tree  of  evil  fruit,  which  Christ  said  must  be  cut  down,  and  the  sycamine 
tree,  which  was  to  be  planted  in  the  sea,  and  the  fig  tree,  which  withered  away 
were  other  than  human  beings? 

"  Trees  feed  upon  the  crude  earth  through  their  buried  roots,  and  mankind  from 
refined  earth  in  various  forms  suitably  prepared  through  nature's  wonderful  labora- 
tory, and  hence  their  equal  liability  to  disease  and  death  from  certain  impoverish- 
ing causes,  atmospherically  and  otherwise;  for,  as  nature  abhors  a  vacuum,  she 
also  detests  corruption,  and  in  order  to  hasten  the  transformation  of  decaying  mat- 
ter into  living  tissue,  we  carry  myriads  of  dormant  microbes  within  us,  patiently 
waiting  the  necessary  conditions  to  commence  their  scavenging  operations.  In 
like  manner  are  all  our  fruit  plants  infested  with  affi nitized  insect  germs,  and  were 
we  not  stone  blind  we  would  long  ago  have  realized  the  fact  also  that  our  suicidal 
greed  for  personal  gain  has  brought  about  the  existing  terrible  results  from  which 
vignerons,  fruit  growers  and  agriculturalists  generally  suffer.  Impoverished  soil 
and  atmosphere  all  over  the  earth  have  furnished  the  necessary  animating  con- 
ditions for  the  parasitical  hosts  who  are  now  in  numerous  forms  busily  at  work  in 
orchard,  vineyard,  vegetable,  grain,  and  grazing  plots,  as  well  as  within  very  large 
numbers  of  human  plants,  and  which  can  only  be  successfully  combated  through 
the  agency  of  an  effective  disease-germ-destroying  specific  and  improved  environ- 
ments." 


FROM  THE  HON.  J.  STERLING  MORTON,  U.  S.  MINISTER  OF  AGRICULTURE 

Department  of  Agriculture,  Office  of  the  Secretary. 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.f  April  25th,  1893. 
JAMES  MCLEAN,  M.  D., 

Dear  Sir — Your  letter  of  the  15th  instant,  with  accompanying  inclosures, 
is  received  and  I  have  given  to  them  such  consideration  as  the  pressure  of  admin- 
istrative duties  would  allow. 

The  importance  of  the  subject  matter  of  your  letter — the  relation  of  forests 
to  health,  to  metereological  conditions,  and  to  the  industrial  interests  of  the  world, 
cannot  be  over-estimated.  We  are  but  beginning  to  understand  and  appreciate 
the  influence  of  the  forests  not  only  upon  physical  conditions,  but  upon  the  whole 
round  of  human  life,  including  its  esthetic  and  moral  aspects.  Therefore  I  hail 
with  hearty  welcome  every  one  who  has  any  understanding  of  the  subject  and  is 
moved  to  use  his  knowledge  for  the  public  good.  If  your  proposed  remedy  for 
the  ravages  of  noxious  insects  shall  prove  practically  effective  you  will  have  your 
reward  in  the  grateful  thanks  of  multitudes. 

Respectfully  yours, 

J.  STERLING  MORTON, 

Secretary. 


Justification  for  an  appeal  to  every  nation  on  the  momentous  question 
of  Forestry : 

"  Civilization  has  progressed  to  the  point  that  makes  the  great  nations  of  the 
world  amenable  to  reason."— SENATOR  STANFORD.  (S.  F.  Examiner,  May  3,  '93). 


52    "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS. 


Of  Insect  Pest  Eradication  Discovery. 


The  object  of  my  invention  is  to  provide  simple,  cheap  and  effective 
means  for  the  total  and  permanent  extirpation  of  all  insect  and  parasitical 
pests  injurious  or  fatal  to  vegetable  growth  wherever  such  have  made  their 
appearance,  and  the  prevention  thereof  in  localities  where  they  are  still 
unknown.  Especially  have  my  efforts  been  directed  in  devising  the  same, 
to  finding  a  specific  for  the  extermination  of  the  phylloxera  vastatrix.  (The 
grape-vine  phylloxera  or  vine  pest)  and  a  practical  way  of  preventing  its 
reappearance  once  it  has  been  rooted  out. 

I  attain  this  object  first  by  creating  a  parasitic  repellant  atmosphere 
through  the  agency  of  Eucalyptus  fringes  and  belts  bounding  and  inter- 
secting generally  all  cultivation  paddocks,  as  also  orchards,  vineyards, 
olive-yards,  hop  fields,  flower  and  vegetable  gardens,  and  nursery  grounds. 
But  while  things  are  being  shaped  to  bring  about  atmospherical  conditions 
that  will  completely  and  permanently  bar  out  all  forms  of  insects  inimical 
to  cultivated  parts,  I  have  to  and  do  provide  a  treatment  for  vegitable  pro- 
ductions that  have  already  been  attacked,  which  will  stamp  out  any  disease 
they  may  be  subjected  to  and  relieve  their  weakness.  This  treatment  con- 
sists in  the  scientific  application  of  the  invigorating  force  and  curative 
properties  of  electricity,  coupled  in  some  instances  with  the  use  of  a  cer- 
tain chemical  compound  adapted  to  rid. the  growing  wood  or  vegetable 
matter  of  its  parasitic  enemies  and  favour  the  benign  influence  of  the 
electrical  power. ' 

That  gardens,  vineyards,  orcbards,  grain  fields,  etc.,  can  be  thoroughly 
protected  from  the  disastrous  inroads  of  grass-hoppers,  locusts,  the  codlin- 
moth,  the  phylloxera,  and  every  other  form  of  insect  pest  by  the  agency  of 
fringes  and  intersecting  belts  of  Eucalyptus  globulus  and  otner  more  hardy 
sorts  of  eucalypti  properly  laid  out,  and  can  be  cleansed  and  fertilized  by 
the  judicious  use  of  electricity,  with  or  without  the  aid  of  an  emulsion, — 
such  as  I  will  herein  describe — hag  been  demonstrated  to  my  entire  satis- 
faction after  years  of  patient  research  and  carefully  conducted  experiments. 
There  is  produced  as  a  result  of  the  pungent  emanations  arising  from 
eucalypti  surroundings  a  strong  antiseptic  atmosphere  within  which  no  in- 
sect plague  can  or  will  exist  whilst  honey  making  bees  thrive  amazingly, 
yielding  an  abundant  supply  of  rich  medicated  honey.  Such  fringes  and 
belts  are  also  believed  to  be  the  best  possible  substitute  that  can  be  pro- 
vided for  the  natural  barriers  formerly  afforded  by  forests,  the  indiscrim- 
inate destruction  of  which,  in  connection  with  impoverished  soil,  is,  in  my 
opinion,  the  real  cause  of  destructive  insect  invasions  and  growth.  They 
also  form  beneficent  shelter  from  the  spread  of  hoar-frost  and  severe  wind 
storms,  in  addition  to  providing  most  desirable  quarters  for  insectivorous 
birds,  and  affording  several  other  advantages  of  an  economical  and  health 
promoting  nature.  As  to  the  effects  producible  by  electricity  in  its  various 
states  and  rates  of  motion,  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  an  electrical 
current  conveyed  by  such  simple  means  as  are  hereafter  described  may  be 
advantageously  utilized  as  a  fertilizer  and  insect  destroyer.  By  acting  on 
the  soil  and  the  water  thereby. raising  their  temperature  a  little  higher  than 
that  of  the  surrounding  air  will  change  their  abnormal  condition  and  en- 
rich the  earth's  productiveness,  impart  new  life  and  vigor  to  the  growing 
plant  and  annihilate  every  form  of  parasite  thereon.  No  one  need  hesi- 
tate in  drawing  upon  the  illimitable  supply  of  this  real  vitiliziug  and  purify- 


Q 
Q 

-     .  0 

f 

}  o>  Q 

Q 

3> 

999 

9 

9    9 

9 

O 

999 

9 

9    9 

9 

Q 

© 

999 

9 

o   o 

9 

© 

999 

9 

9    0 

9 

0 

999 

i 

9    9 

9 

© 

999 

9 

9    9 

<5 

O 

0    0 


° 

O 

Q    Q    Q 

Q    Q     O     O 

9 

9 

9         9 

9         0          0 

9 

9 

»      o-, 

9 

9 

'999 

9 

9 

9         9 

999 

9 

9 

9        9 

999 

9 

9 

9         9/ 

999 

OOOOOOQQ     ®    ©     G 

FlG.l. 


O     O     9 


— '          FIG. 5. 


Fic.4- 


i 


"  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS.1'         63 

ing  force,  as  practical  tests  will  always  show  the  wonderful  fertilizing 
power  of  electricity  through  impoverished  soil,  and  its  fatal  effects  on 
parasitical  pests—*'  nature's  scavengers"— including  the  phylloxera  "  (in 
as  effective  a  manner  as  Professors  Mengarini,  Bernardi,  Martinotti  De 
Meritens,  Riviere  and  Tolomei's  electric  methods  to  destrov  undesirable 
fermenting  germs  in  wine.  The  latter  professor  experimented,  during 
91,  on  the  action  of  an  induction  current  on  the  fermentation  of  the 
must,  and  came  to  the  following  conclusion: — 

1.  The  development  of  Saccharomyees  ellipsoideus    (peculiar  insect  pests)   is 
largely  prevented  by  the  action  of  the  electric  current,  and  when  the  latter  is  strong 
enough  to  produce  light  in  a  dark  room  its  development  is  stopped. 

2.  The  liquid  that  has  undergone  the  action  of  the  electric  current  keeps  well 
without  developing  any  fermentation,  just  as  if  it  had  been  boiled  for  some  time. 

3.  The  ferment  (i.  e.  the  bacteria)  is  destroyed  by  a  strong   electric  current." 
— Professor  E.  W.  Hilgard,  California  University.) 

"  Batteries  for  instance,  may  be  safely  and  effectively  used  to  cleanse 
and  vitilize  all  vineyards  irrespective  of  extent  or  position.  Similar  treat- 
ment is  applicable  to  orchards,  and,  with  some  modifications  to  cultivated 
lands  in  general.  But  the  electrical  action  has  to  be  helped  sometimes  by 
the  employment  of  an  emulsion — aforesaid.  What  this  emulsion  consists 
of  and  how  it  is  aoplied,  when  and  how  to  treat  the  diseased,  weak  or 
poorly-fed  vegetable  productions  electrically,  and  in  which  way  to  set  out 
and  grow  the  fringes  and  belts  of  eucalypti,  I  shall  now  proceed  to  des- 
cribe in  detail, — reference  being  had  to  the  accompanying  drawing  aud  to 
the  letters  and  figures  thereon,  which  form  part  of  this  specification. 

Figure  1  of  said  drawing  is  a  broken  plan  of  a  vineyard  surrounded  and 
divided  by  fringes  and  belts  of  eucalypti,  showing  what  I  consider  a  suit- 
able way  of  carrying  out  my  invention. 

Figure  2  is  a  broken  sectional  elevation  giving  a  practical  illustration  of 
the  manner  of  conveying  an  electric  current  to  a  row  of  vines  or  other 
plants. 

Fig  3  is  a  top  view  showing  how  the  wires  from  battery  may  be  con- 
nected with  and  disconnected  from  the  vines  or  other  plants  undergoing 
treatment. 

Figure  4  is  a  detailed  view  of  insultating  tubes  which  may  be  used  where 
the  electric  wires  rest  against  vines  or  other  plants  that  no  longer  need  to 
be  electrified. 

Figure  5  is  a  diagramatic  view  of  the  electric  supply  fluid  conveying 
wires,  and  plants  in  the  circuit,  showing  how  several  rows  of  vines  or  other 
plants  may  be  treated  with  electricity  from  one  and  the  same  source. 

A  represents  vines,  which  by  preference,  are  set  out  ten  feet  distant 
from  one  another,  in  parallel  rows  about  the  same  distance  apart.  B  and 
G  respectively  designate  rows  of  eucalyptus  trees  disposed  in  fringes  and 
belts  round  and  through  the  vineyard,  the  trees  in  each  fringe  and  belt 
ranging  from  three  to  eight  feet  and  upwards  apart,  as  determined  by  cir- 
cumstances.  Each  row  of  eucalypti  is  about  twelve  feet  distant  every- 
where from  the  nearest  row  of  vines,  and  a  distance  of  about  one  hundred 
aud  sixty  feet  intervenes  between  each  belt,  as  also  between  the  end  fringes 
and  the 'nearest  belts.  The  number  of  intersecting  belta  G  is,  of  couse, 
determined  by  the  size  of  the  vineyard,  which,  as  the  lines  G.  'G.  2  in- 
dicate, can  be  of  any  length.  In  laying  out  the  fringes  and  belts,  the  plants 
— Eucalypti  rootiugs — are  set  in  properly  prepared  trenches  at  least  four 
feet  deep  and  if  possible  filled  in  round  plants  with  a  mixture  of  sand  and 
earth.  When  planting,  the  roots  should  be  given  a  longitudinal  and  down. 


14 

ward  set  so  that  they  may  not  run  inwardly  to  interfere  with  the  growth 
of  the  vines  or  other  produce  being  raised  in  the  plots  surrounded  by  the 
eucalypti.  During  the  first  year  or  two  the  young  eucalypti  plants  should 
be  protected  from  extreme  heat  and  cold  by  the  agency  of  light  rough 
sapling  frames  over  which  any  cheap,  coarse  calico  fabric  may  be  secured. 
They  should  also  be  occasionally  examined  and  certain  caterpillars,  which 
frequently  lodge  under  carefully  folded  leaves,  picked  off  and  destroyed. 
Liquid  manure  applied  round  their  butts  will  lead  to  a  vigorous  growth. 
As  the  plants  mature  all  necessity  for  special  attention  decreases,  but  the 
shading  bark  should  be  carefully  removed  and  the  trees  lopped  at  an  al- 
titude of  sixty  or  eighty  feet.  Then  the  work  of  protection  is  completed. 
And  it  may  be  added  that  the  vineyardist  who  will  carefully  follow  the 
foregoing  instructions  and  raise  fringes  and  belts  of  eucalypti  trees  a'.ound 
and  through  his  property,  as  directed,  need  not  long  fear  the  ravages  of 
phylloxera  or  other  voracious  pests,  as  within  a  short  time  his  estate  will 
become  for  quite  thirty  feet  round  and  beyond  its  boundaries  absolutely 
exempt  from  such  insects  as  may  have  previously  infested  it — including 
locust  invasions,  and  the  more  reckless  who  will  occasionally  venture  with- 
in the  invisible  boundary  line  extending  over  the  tree  tops  will  drop  dead 
before  reaching  the  coveted  plants. 

It  will  be  understood  that  the  spaces  intervening  between  the  fringes 
and  belts  of  eucalypti  and  the  vines  may  be  utilized  for  raising  beet  roots, 
tomatoes,  and  other  vegetables,  which  will  grow  luxuriantly  on  at  least 
eight  feet  of  said  space,  so  there  is  no  occasion  to  fear  any  waste  of  ground 
resulting  from  the  adoption  of  the  plan  and  mode  of  culture  now  proposed. 
It  will  be  seen  also  that  what  has  been  said  regarding  the  protection  of 
vineyards,  applies  with  equal  force  to  orchards  and  other  cultivated  lands, 
with  only  such  changes  as  difference  of  culture  will  naturally  suggest. 

Having  shown  how  cultivated  grounds  may  be  rendered  free  from  insect 
pests  and  afterwards  permanently  kept  exempt  from  such  by  growing 
round  and  across  them  eucalypti  fringes  and  belts  that  will  act  like  so 
many  walls  and  partitions  to  repel  and  prevent  the  attacks  of  all  parasiti- 
cal pests,  there  remains  to  be  explained  how  infected  plants  may  be  rid  of 
the  disease  affecting  them,  how  others  may  be  preserved  in  a  healthy  con- 
dition until  such  time  as  the  protecting  fringes  and  belts  shall  have  come 
to  maturity,  and  how  the  weak  ones  may  at  any  time  be  reanimated  and 
strengthened.  As  already  pointed  out,  the  purifying,  preservatory,  vital- 
izing and  invigorating  agent  relied  on  to  do  this  is  electricity,  with  or  with- 
out the  aid  of  a  chemical  emulsion. 

As  to  the  apparatus  required  for  conveying  an  electric  current  to  the  plants 
and  charging  them  with  electricity,  none,  it  is  thought,  will  answer  the 
purpose  better  than  the  simple  appliance  illustrated  in  the  accompanying 
drawing  and  which  merely  consists  of  one  or  more  batteries  D  with  cop- 
per wires  E  E\  attached,  respectively,  to  their  positive  and  negative  poles. 
By  preference,  the  wire  E  leading  from  the  battery  or  batteries  is  insulated 
by  means  of  an  india  rubber  tube  F  and  passed  through  the  crotch  of  the 
vines  or  other  plants  to  be  electrified — or  suspended  therefrom,  at  about 
one  foot  from  the  ground.  Thence  it  descends  through  the  ground,  E 
about  the  top  of  the  roots  where  it  is  attached  to  the  bare  return  wire  E,  1 
which  is  connected  by  loops  or  short  lengths,  as  at  At  with  the  trunks  of 
the  various  plants.  The  upper  wire  may  be  arranged  and  connected  with 
the  plants  in  the  same  manner  as  the  lower  one,  if  desired.  Both  wires 
may  also  be  connected  by  separate  wires  running  along  the  stem  of  any 
Tine  or  other  plant,  to  intensify  the  action  of  the  electric  current,  when- 


1 '  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  SiTIOSS. "    55 

ever  it  is  deemed  advisible.    Infected  and  other  vines  as  also  fruit  tree 
may  thus  be  vitalized,  and  insect  pests-including  the  pbvlioxe  a  des- 
troyed by  a  current  of  electricity  derived  from  any  suitable  battery 
dynamo,  or  storage  supply.     If  all  the  vines  in  a  row  are  to  follow  the 
££*?!&*i  *H  el'°tnc  ^«_s  may  be  run  and  attached  thereto  in  tl 


h  i,  '  If  some  of  e  ™e-  are 

in  a  healthy  state,  they  may  be  left  out  of  the  circuit  and  the  current 
diverted  to  the  weaker  or  more  sickly  ones,  as  represented  at  Figure  3. 
In  such  case  the  connecting  loop  or  length  of  wire  is  dispensed  with  or 
removed  and  the  main  wire  passing  by  the  healthy  vines  may  be  com- 
pletely insulated  therefrom  by  means  of  an  extra  over-lapping  tube  or 
rubber  sleeve  .F  covering  the  part  where  the  connecting  loop  or  length  is 
usually  attached,  Such  an  arrangement  is  shown  at  Figure  4.  Figure  5 
shows  another  arrangement  whereby  several  tiers  or  rows  of  vines  may  be 
charged  with  electricity  from  a  single  battery  or  series  of  batteries.  In 
the  latter  figure  all  the  electric  wires  start  from  the  positive  pole  of  the 
battery  and  return  after  winding  round  the  vines  in  the  circuit  to  a  root  G 
connected  with  the  negative  pole.  This  is  thought  to  be  a  most  economical 
as  well  as  effective  way  to  apply  the  electric  current. 

While  infected  vines  and  "fruit  trees  are  purified,  vitalized  and 
strengthened  by  the  application  of  electricity,  they  will  be  found  to  be 
still  more  benefited  and  more  completely  cured  if  treated  at  the  same  time 
with  an  emulsion  composed  of  potash,  flower  of  sulphur  and  water  in  the 
following  proportions—potash  2  Ibs.;  flower  of  sulpus  3  Iba.;  water  5  gal- 
lons. The  potaeh  is  disolved  with  a  little  linseed  oil;  the  sulphur  antf. 
water  are  boiled  twenty  minutes  in  a  covered  boiler;  then  all  the  in- 
gredients are  mixed  and  stirred  together.  The  boiler  must  be  kept  well 
covered  and  wood  only  used  to  stir  the  compound. 

When  this  emulsion  is  used  in  the  treatment  of  vines,  the  earth  around 
the  butts  should  be  well  puddled  with  it  to  beneath  the  upper  roots  and 
all  infected  leaves  sprayed  therewith. 

To  cleanse  blight  diseased  orchards,  the  following  directions  should  be 
followed: — 

1.  Carefully  clear  away  the  earth  from  round  the  buts  of  infected  trees 
for  a  distance  of  about  one  foot  from  the  ground  surface  down  to  the  top 
of  the  upper  roots,  and  with  a  soft  brush  liberally  paint  round  the  buts 
from  the  roots  to  about  fifteen  inches  above  the  ground  with  the  emulsion, 
also  moistening  the  top  roots  and  round  the  bottom  of  the  opening  with  the 
mixture. 

2.  Leave  the  cleared  out  parts  open,  and  with  a  suitable  hose  or  hand 
watering-can  satuiate  the  ground  with  water  round  the  opening  for  a 
distance  of  about  eighteen  inches,  avoiding  the  opening. 

3.  Should  the  upper  parts  of  the  trees  be  blighted  or  otherwise  affected, 
spray  such  with  the  emulsion.     One  application  will  suffice,  but  may  be 
repeated,  as  the  emulsion  has  a  specially  nourishing  effect  on  vegetation. 

4.  On  day  following  examine  the  moistened  parts  round  the  openings 
for  dead  or  dying  insects.     Repaint  the  buts  and  root  tops.     Also  moisten 
the  bottom  of  openings,  then  fill  in  openings  with  roughly  powdered  char- 
coal, over  which  place  a  liberal  supply  of  eucalyptus  leaves  held  in  position 
by  rough  little  sapling  triangle  frames  or  by  short  cuttings  of  saplings. 

During  a  locust  invasion,  vines,  olives  and  fruit  trees  may  be  thorough- 
ly protected  until  the  said  fringes  and  belts  of  eucalypti  mature,  by  spray- 
ing them  with  the  above  described  emulsion,  aided  by  the  eucalypti  leaves 
round  the  buts. 


•5G          "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  W6r6  FOK  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS." 

Having  described  rny  invention,  what  I  claim  as  new,  and  desire  to  se- 
cure by  letters  patent  is: — 

1.  The  herein  described  method  of  driving  and  keeping  destructive  in- 
sects away  from  cultivated  ground,  which  consists  in  surrounding  and 
dividing  said  ground  with  or  by  means  of  fringes  and  intersecting  belts  of 
eucalypti,  substantially  as  set  forth. 

2.  The  herein  described  method  of  freeing  cultivated  ground  from  in- 
sect pests,  which  consists  in  planting  eucalypti  round  and  through  said 
ground,  and  charging  the  vegetable  productions  therein  with  electricity, 
substantially  as  set  forth. 

3.  The  herein  described  method  of  ridding  cultivated  ground  of  insect 
plagues,  which  consists  in  providing  fringes  and  intersecting  belts  of 
eucalypti  around  and  across  said  ground,  and  treating  the  vegetable  pro- 
ductions therein  electrically  with  the  aid  of  an  emulsion,  substantially  as 
net  forth. 

4.  The   herein   described   method  of  planting  fringes   and  belts   of 
eucalypti  round  and  through  cultivated  ground,  giving  the  roots  of  each 
plant  a  longitudinal  and  downward  set,  substantially  as  set  forth. 

5.  The  herein  described  method  of  cleansing,  vitalizing  and  strength- 
ening vegetable  productions,  which  consists  in  the  application  of  electricity 
to  growing  wood  or  vegetable  matter,  substantially  as  set  forth. 

6.  The  herein  described  method  of  treating  plants  electrically,  which 
consists  in  the  use  of  any  suitable  means  of  conveying  a  current  therefrom 
along,  around,  or  through  said  plants,  substantially  as  set  forth. 

7.  The  herein  described  method  of  purifying  and  fertilizing  cultivated 
ground  and  the  vegetable  products  therein,  which  consists  in  surrounding 
and  intersecting  the  same  with  eucalypti  fringes  and  belts,  substantially 
as  described,  and  conveying  an  electric  current  thereto  by  means  of  wires 
connected  with  any  suitable  electric  source,  aided  by  an  emulsion  com- 
posed of  potash,  flower  of  sulphur  and  water  prepared  and  applied  sub- 
stantially in  the  manner  and  proportions  herein  set  forth. 


The  various  detailed  methods  in  the  above  specification  are  so  closely 
interwoven  with  each  other  for  the  eradication  and  prevention  of  destructive 
insect  plagues  as  to  necessitate  their  united  adoption,  in  order  to  ensure  the 
desired  results.  The  electric  appliance  bei  ng  to  cleanse  insect  infested  roots 
and  to  vitalize  the  surrounding  soil,  whilst  the  Eucalypti  fringes,  etc.  re- 
pel periodical  visitations  of  grasshoppers,  locusts  and  other  destructive 
insects,  as  also  fungi  creating  malaria,  besides  providing  exceptional  ever- 
green shelter  from  wind  storms,  hoar  frosts  and  pleasurable  protection  to 
insectivorous  birds.  The  emulsion,  etc.,  to  be  used  when  required  until 
the  Eucalypti  trees  mature.  The  particulars  regarding  the  trenching  and 
arranging  of  Eucalypti  plant-roots  to  be  simply  considered  as  a  detail  to 
ensure  said  roots  from  straying  in  quest  of  more  congenial  soil.  I 
therefore — for  the  above  reasons  and  those  stated  throughout  this  treatise 
—respectfully  submit  that  the  plan  as  a  whole  is  worthy  of  serious  con- 
sideration, as  by  its  general  adoption  a  more  than  gradual  restoration  of 
local  forest-lungs  an  1  consequent  climatic  benefits  within  the  boundaries 
of  all  fruit  and  grain  growing  centres  would  be  assured,  whilst  the  har- 
nessing of  reinvigorated  water  falls  and  of  the  ocean  beach  eurf — now 
seriously  contemplated — would  furnish  an  abundance  of  the  electric 
motive  and  fertilizing  fluid  at  a  nominal  cost  to  rural  districts. 


"  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  W6T6  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS."    67 


FOREST  ANNIHILATION  IN   CALIFORNIA,    A  STUDY. 

(  From  the  8.  F.  Morning  Call,  May  28tfi,  1893.) 

"The  forests  of  California  are  among  the  wonders  of  the  world,  and  the  lumber  in- 
dustries they  give  rise  to  are  among  the  most  important  on  the  coast.  The  chief 
growth  is  the  redwood,  which  yields  so  enormously  that  the  State  Board  of  Forestry 
estimates  that  redwood  forests  comprise  half  the  timber  in  California,  and  this 
though  the  redwood  is  confined  to  the  coast,  while  the  area  of  timber  lands  in  the 
interior  is  many  times  more  than  that  on  the  coast.  Other  trees  used  in  the  lumber 
trade  are  sugar  pines,  often  found  8  feet  in  diameter  and  of  immense  height  with- 
out flaw;  willow,  cotton  wood,  sycamore,  oaks  of  all  kinds  (including  cheetnut  oak, 
whose  bark  tans  the  famed  California  sole  leather),  laurel  or  bay  wood.  Redwood 
burl  is  an  excrescence  growing  on  the  sides  of  the  tree,  which  makes  elegant 
veneering. 

"In  the  United  States  there  are  466,000,000  acres  of  timber  land  exclusive  of 
Alaska.  Of  these  53,000,000  are  divided  among  the  Pacific  States.  These  do  not 
include  unmerchantable  timber.  California  has  a  forest  area  of  more  than  18,- 
000,000  acres.  Some  idea  of  the  volume  of  the  lumber  industry  may  be  gathered 
from  a  brief  presentation  of  figures  regarding  it  taken  from  a  single  representative 
county—  Humboldt.  Of  938,000  acres  in  Humboldt  County  classified  as  timber 
lands  about  538,000  were  originally  covered  with  redwood  forest,  leaving  about 
400,000  acres  of  other  timber  divided  about  equally  among  pine,  spruce,  fir  and 
cedar  lands,  and  lands  covered  principally  with  madrone  and  laurel  and  tanbark, 
and  white,  black  and  live  oaks.  Of  the  redwood  lands  some  39,500  acres  have  now 
been  cut  and  sawed  into  about  4,000,000,000  feet  of  timber,  leaving  498,500  acres 
standing,  which  at  the  conservative  estimate  of  100,000  feet  per  acre  will  produce 
49,850,000,000  feet  of  lumber.  The  present  rate  of  cutting  is  about  200,000,000 
feet  of  lumber  per  year. 

"From  the  port  of  Eureka  the  lumber  fleet,  together  with  the  passenger  steamers, 
took  away  during  1891,  152,517,  613  feet  of  lumber,  which  includes  shakes,  shingles, 
pickets,  etc.,  valued  at  $2,897,834.  Of  this  amount  9,998,663  went  to  foreign 
ports,  as  follows  : 

To  Honolulu  ............................................  3,937,193 

To  Sydney  ...............    .....................  .........  3,796,644 

To  Guaymas,  Mexico  ..............................   .....    450>l5i 

To  LaPaz,  Lower  California  .............  ................    ooaoS 

To  Valparaiso  .........................................     332,336 

ToCallao  ..............................................     284,007 

To  Victoria,  B.  C  ......................................    182,679 

To  Central  America  ................................  ~  *;•    J»'5H 

To  Tahiti  ..............................................    208>951 

"Fresno  is  another  large  lumber  center,  as  is  Mendocino,  and  altogether  it  has 
been  estimated  that  the  annual  production  of  lumber  in  the  State  is  not  less  than 
300000000  feet.  Dr.  Kellogg,  in  his  "Forest  Trees  of  California,  says  that 
"  probably  from  a  fair  estimate  of  the  redwood  along  our  coast  it  would  not  com- 
prise more  than  3000  square  miles  of  forest  land." 

-The  amount  of  timber  now  standing  has  been  variously  estimated^  ating  all 
wav  from  25  000,000,000  to  100,000,000,000  feet  board  measure.    While  in  sc 
rectionsUie  iand'will  not  yield  more  than  from  10,000  to  15,000  feet  per  acre  there 
are  others  which  will  yield  from  250,000  to  500,000  feet,  so  it  will  be  see*  L  how  Dif- 
ficult it  is  to  figure  the  total  closely.    As  previously  indicated    the  redwood  belt  is 
located  on  the  coast  of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and  between  it  and  the  mterio]  o.  f  the 
State  lies  the  Coast  Range.     For  this  reason  the  railroad  touches  it  ;  at  on  y  ^one  or 
two  points,  and  almost  the  entire  product  is  transported  by  wantfftr-pd^e1Sn  ber- 
eailing  vessels  are  used  for  this  purpose,  and  the  capital  employed  i    ^e  lumber 
carrying  trade  is  a  very  important  factor  in  the  commercial  interest  ^of  'our  bL 

"  There  are  about  forty  mills  engaged  in  cutting  redwood,  the  largest  having  a 


58    "  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS/ 

capacity  of  75,000  to  80,000  per  day.  Perhaps  the  average  capacity  of  them  all 
would  be  about  50,000  feet  per  day.  (To  multiply  50,000  by  40  totals  2,000,000 
feet  per  day,  and  by  300  working  days  in  the  year,  make  six  hundred  millions  of  feet 
per  annum,  for  forty  years  at  least  forming  a  grandtotal  of  24,000,000,000  feet  of 
redwood  alone,  exclusive  of  pine,  spruce,  fir,  oak  and  cedar  removed  by  lumber- 
men and  forest  fires,  etc.,  minus  any  replenishing  effort!)  There  was  manu- 
factured and  shipped  from  the  redwood  mills  in  Mendocino  and  Humboldt  counties 
during  the  year  1891  about  230,000,000  feet.  Of  this  about  12,000,000  went  to 
foreign  countries,  while  the  balance,  218,000,000  was  consumed  in  the  Pacific 

States  or  shipped  to  interior  States. 

"The  State  Board  of  Forestry  says:  "The  water  flowing  in  California  rivers  is 
more  precious  than  the  gold  lying  hidden  in  their  sands.  So  long  as  the  forests 
cover  the  mountain  sides  the  streams  will  flow  with  some  evenness  throughout  the 
year;  but  when  the  forests  disappear  the  rivers  will  become  rushing  torrents  in  the 
spring  and  dry  arroyos  all  the  rest  of  the  year.  The  forests  of  the  Sierra  Nevada 
are  the  natural  reservoirs  for  irrigation  of  the  San  Joaquin  valley.  Hitherto  the 
mountains  have  been  left  to  the  sheep-herder  and  the  millman,  who  have  wrought 
destruction  unheeded  and  unchecked.  Sheep-raising  and  timber-cutting  are  legiti- 
mate pursuits  and  entitled  to  fair  treatment,  but  as  conducted  in  California  for 
many  years  they  have  not  been  conducive  to  the  general  welfare.  The  millman 
has  slashed  the  forests  recklessly,  wasting  more  than  he  used  and  not  confining  his 
operations  to  his  own  property.  The  sheep-herder,  caring  only  for  pasturage,  has 
set  fire  to  the  brush  annually,  burning  off  the  young  growth  and  killing  the  large 
trees.  The  seedlings  and  shoots  that  escaped  the  forest  fires  were  destroyed  by  the 
sheep.  And  so  not  only  has  the  mature  forest  been  greatly  injured  but  the  total 
extinction  of  the  forest  growth  made  inevitable  unless  the  work  of  devastation  be 
stopped." 

A  TARDY  YET  OPPERTUNE  PROTEST. 

(San  Francisco  Examiner  May  ZSth,  1893.) 

[Special  to  the  EXAMINER.] 

WASHINGTON,  May  27.— Commissioner  Lamoreux  of  the  General  Land  Office  to- 
day rendered  one  of  the  most  important  decisions  that  has  come  from  the  Land 
Office  in  many  years,  when  he  decided  the  famous  Kedwood  land  case  in  the  Hum- 
boldt  district,  California.  By  his  decision  over  148,000  acres  of  valuable  timber  is 
decided  to  be  the  property  of  the  Government  on  account  of  the  fraudulent  entries 
made  by  persons  who  were  trying  to  get  this  timber  from  the  Government.  The 
probabilities  are  that  the  parties  who  have  been  defeated  in  this  case  will  imme- 
diately appeal  it  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  but  now  that  there  is  a  Democrat 
in  that  office  he  will  probably  not  allow  the  country  to  be  robbed  by  speculations, 
and  the  decision  of  the  Commissioner  will  doubtless  be  affirmed.  It  is  also  probable 
that  in  the  near  future  this  entire  tract,  with,  perhaps,  additional  lands  adjoining, 
will  be  set  apart  as  a  forest  reservation  to  prevent  its  dispoilation  to  reserve  it  for 
future  use.  Assistant  Commissioner  Bowers  of  the  General  Land  Office  has  been 
all  through  that  country  and  he  recognizes  the  importance  of  forest  preservation, 
and  when  the  Commissioner's  decision  was  brought  to  his  attention  to-day  he  at 
once  saw  the  importance  of  having  the  President  issue  a  proclamation  reserving 
this  land  from  further  encroachments  and  depredations.  The  redwood  land  case 
has  created  a  great  deal  of  interest  in  the  West,  and  the  decision  of  the  Commis- 
sioner will  no  doubt  be  gratifying  to  all  persons  who  sought  the  preservation  of 
these  lands." 


In  the  May  number  of  this  year's  Plant  Life,  a  San  Francisco  monthly 
journal  devoted  to  the  advancement  of  "  horticulture,  viticulture  and 
floral  vegetation,"  appeared  an  interesting  article  under  the  heading  of 
"  Need  of  a  Higher  Education,"  from  which  I  quote  the  following  : 

"Plant  diseases  are  not  only  alarmingly  increasing  in  general,  but  the  affec- 
tions are  becoming  more  serious  in  their  characters.  With  these  facts  promin- 


"  THE  LEAVES  OF  THE  TREE  Were  FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NATIONS."    59 

ently  presenting  themselves,  it  should  be  inferred  that  there  must  be  a  radical 
deficiency  in  the  knowledge  we  possess  governing  the  hygiene  of  vegetation,  or 
how,  otherwise,  can  the  increase  and  deadliness  in  diseases  be  accounted  for  ? 
There  is  no  disguising  the  fact  that  the  disease  of  the  dropping  of  fruit  from  trees, 
even  after  a  well-advanced  stage  of  growth,  is  becoming  alarmingly  prevalent  and 
increasing  the  area  of  country  affected,  The  diseases  of  blight  and  scabs  are  in- 
vading regions  where  it  was  thought  they  could  not  exist,  and  evidently  these 
parasites  adapt  tnemselves  to  climate  and  vegetation  readily,  while  countless 
tribes  of  insects  are  fastening  upon  every  variety  of  plant  life.  A  general  re- 
view of  the  horticultural  field  will  show  that  notwithstanding  the  care  which  has 
been  bestowed  by  government  and  state,  to  prevent  the  spread  of  the  pestilential 
characters,  the  result  has  been  the  development  of  new  and  more  dangerous  ene- 
mies, without  a  corresponding  diminution  in  the  number  of  the  former." 

The  real  cause  should  now  be  apparent  to  every  observing  forester. 


ERRATA. 

The  artist  inadvertently  omitted  showing  the  indicating  letters  on  the  annexed 
reduced  plan,  which  will  however  be  sufficiently  understood  by  reference  to  the  res- 
pective figures  thereon.  The  large  outer  and  centre  rings  of  Fig.  1  indicate  eucalypti 
plants,  and  the  double  transverse  lines  denote  an  extension  of  vineyard  or  orchard  to 
any  required  limit  within  a  suitable  distance  from  boundaries  and  from  each  inter- 
secting belt.  The  arrows  of  Fig.  2  indicate  how  the  electric  current  travels  from  the 
positive  to  the  negative  poles  of  battery.  See  plan  on  page  52  of  original  experi- 
mental grounds  and  specification  on  pages  55  to  58. 

The  word  "raised"  on  top  line  of  page  14  should  read  "  razed." 

The  words  "wher  uprooted"  in  24th   line   from  bottom  of  page   15  should  read 

41  were  uprooted." 
On  the  third  last  line  of  paragraph  under  the   heading  " Fearful  Shipwrecks," 

should  read  "  odd  craft." 
The  concluding  portion  of  fifth  line  on  page  28  should  read  "  two  very  great 

factors." 

Certain  words  on  page  29,  last  line,  should  read  "  his  hair,  beard  and  necktie." 
The  word  at  end  of  the  18th  line  from  top,  on  page  43,  should  read  "  appeared." 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


PAGE, 

PKEFACE  ................................................................  2 

The  Evolution  of  Obscure  Truths  ..........................................  S 

Minute  Fungacious  Organisms  .............................................  4 

The  Chemistry  of  Creation  ................................................  4 

Forest  Influence  in  Gallilee  .....................................  .  .........  5 

The  Order  of  Creation  ....................................................  5 

"  That  which  hath  been  is  now"  ..........................................  8 

Boussingault  and  Humboldt  ...............................................  7 

Reboisement  in   France  ...................................................  9 

A  Few  of  the  Fruits  from  Wholesale  Forest  Destruction  ......................  9 

Alarming  Dispatches  (8.  F.  Examiner)  ......................................  11 

Special  Dispatches  (S.  F.  Cnronicle)  ........................................  12 

A  Terrible  Storm  ........................................................  15 

Cursed  by    Cholera  ...................................................... 

Fearful  Shipwrecks  ....................................................... 

Fierce  Forest   Fires  .......................................................  J6 

Forest  Destroying  Combines.  ...  ____  ......................................  *' 

Dante's    Inferno  ..................    ..................  ..................... 

Forest  Lands  Preferred  for  Settlement  ......................................  "[ 

An  Australian  Conference  re  Locust  Plagues  .................................  2Q 

A  False  Report  ...............................  •  •  •  •  •  :  '  '  :  .  ...................  91 

U.  S.  Consul  E.  L.  Baker's  Report  Concerning  Eucalypti  ..........  £i 

Further   Testimony  ......................  •  •  ..........  ..........  04 

A  Big   Bank   Failure  from  Atmospheric  Troubles  .......................... 

Additional  Evidence  of  Ruined  Deforested  Soil  ........................ 

A  Deforestation  Lesson  from  Russia  ..............................  26 

Death  Valley  ........................  '•"•:"  '1"..'".  ..................... 

Immense  Value  of  the  American  Grape  Growing  Industry  ............... 

Other   Fruits  ....................................................  29 

Locust  Plagues  in  Algeria  ....................................  29 

Killed  by   Locusts  ....................................  :  •  •  30 

Scripture  Warnings  ..................................  30 

Newman's  Callista  .........................  •_•  .......  :  ........... 

The  Vine  and  Phylloxera  in  California  (Prof.  Husmann)  ••••••••  ............ 

French  Report  on  the  Bi-sulphate  of  Carbon  Treatment  for  Phylloxera  ........ 

The  Phylloxera  in  Australia  ....................  •  .............  35 

Professor  F.  W.  Morse  ...............  •  •  ........  •  ................  36 

Concerning  Known  (Phylloxera)  Remedies  .............  g7 

The  Phylloxera  Question  ...........  .  .................  "  j         37 

Comparative  Results  .............  •  ......................  38 

Vine  Troubles  in  France  ...........................  '".".'.'.         39 

Atmospheric  Germs  ......  .  .  .  .  .  ........................  42 

The  Mediterranean  Flour-Moth  ...................                               '  42 

CapZS'aud  Hygienic  Consequents  of'  Aimospneric-Troub.es:: 

Poor  Crop  Outlook  .....  ''-•'.;•'.:  ....................  45 

California's  Deforesting   Contribution  ................  46 

Dangerous  Experiments  .....................  '.'.....,.........  47 

Conclusion  ......................................  '  ........  48 

Ruinous  Contrasts  ..........................  '    ...........  49 

Remedy  ............................  ...............  .'.'.'  ...........  49 


Important  and  Addendum,  -  Plant  Life,  Etc  ......  \\\'\\\\\\\.\...\  .........        60 

Eratta  ................  ••  .....  ..............  *  ...... 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


. 

DEC?    REC'D 


LIBRARY,  COLLEGE  OF  AGRICULTURE,  DAVIS 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

5m-2,  '42  (9630s) 


McLean,  J. 

Treatise  on  the  ori 
gin  of  destructive  in 
sect  plagues. 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY   OF   CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


